August Wins and Podcast Recs

Officially September!

I am pretty happy with certain aspects of my life in these past few weeks. A few areas – not so good. But overall, I think I have more WINS than FAILS.

August Wins

1- extremely consistent workouts! On week 5 of my monthly strength plan and haven’t missed a strength workout yet. I am slowing feeling myself return to the “old me” who treated workouts as a non-negotiable. Over the past couple of years I somehow slid into a mindset of thinking that workouts were somehow “extras” that should only fit in IF and WHEN everything else was done or out of the way. I felt guilty putting it above other, more “important” things. No more. I refuse to accept that. Working out is essential to my physical and mental health, full stop. My workouts are <1 hour out of my day, 5 days a week, and even shorter on cardio days (20 minutes). This is reasonable. I’m feeling strong and fit right now.

2- very consistent daily walks, especially consistent these last 2 weeks (right after Ethan leaves for school- I hit 5/5 both weeks!). Key has been aiming fairly low- my loop is just barely 20 minutes + in the morning before life gets in the way. Considering I sit on my butt for work all day, this also feels essential to my health!

3- I’ve been reading EVERY morning, first thing when I get up. I am loving loving LOVING this. It brings me so much joy to make my tea and then settle in at my desk to read in the quiet of my house. I usually only read for 10-15 minutes! But I am reading, every single day. (As you may have noticed, I’m not publishing blog posts first thing in the morning anymore (or as frequently). I did really like writing first thing in the morning, but something had to give. Blog posts often take me longer than they should to write, probably because I am, um, verbose. I like to be upstairs while Ethan gets ready for school (6:30-7), so, I have axed morning blogging. It just doesn’t fit in (unless I got up crazy early, but that isn’t a good option for my health, either.) Instead, I have taken to being downstairs by ~5:45 so I can read for 15 minutes and then have 30 minutes to either plan my day or work/check work email, etc. before heading up at 6:30.

Currently Reading:

4- Better sleep! Maybe it’s because Ivan and I aren’t currently watching a show… but my Apple Watch sleep data for August says my average time in bed is 7 hours 48 minutes, with average time asleep 6 hours 47 minutes. My goal is 7 hours. So, I’m technically under that for asleep time, but I don’t think I’m actually aware of some of those little “wake ups” the watch detects… so I say close enough.

5- I’m still time tracking. I feel weird calling it time tracking though, because it’s not really “time tracking” exactly if I’m not doing anything with the data, IMO. I feel like true time tracking involves tallying up time spent on certain activities or somehow categorizing it. I’m not doing that. But I have been consistently filling out my spreadsheet every day (including the bottom section where I track workouts, meals, things I accomplished, gratitude, things making me happy, etc.). I would say I am journaling here, not time tracking, really. I greatly enjoy this practice. ♥

6- I am happy with how present I have been with Ethan since he started high school. Maybe it’s the fact that video games go mostly bye-bye during the school year for us, or just the nature and rhythms of our days currently, but I feel like I’m spending a LOT of quality time with Ethan right now. Which is weird, because he is also gone a lot. (Note to all working and/or fretting parents: QUALITY > QUANTITY! More is not always better.)

But between driving sessions, soccer games, helping w/ homework & organizing tips, reading together before bed, and our 1:1 morning time (6:30-7 a.m- he eats breakfast, I unload dishwasher, and we chat), I feel like we’ve had some really great connection lately. And I am all in.

7- I have done “some” meal planning. People know this is a weak spot for me, but I’ve been making a strong effort. At least for the last 2-3 weeks, I have sketched out a couple of meals and have tried to look ahead to what we’ll eat/ when and when/who is cooking. Can I keep it up?! Time will tell…. haha… but I hope so. It really does make life easier.

Lunches have been hit or miss- I have had an entire bag of microwave popcorn for lunch at least twice in the recent past… oops… but today I just finished this nice salad with tuna, pico de gallo and shaved parmesan:

8- I have been fitting in my 2x/ week chiropractor appointments. A bit of a hassle to schedule, but at least the appts are very short and quick. Usually <15 minutes. I’ve had perfect attendance.

August Fails

1- Speaking of chiropractor, I have not been so good about doing my “home exercises” they prescribed. I know…. bad patient. I just run out of time (or energy) in the day eventually!!

2- I have not been making much progress on decluttering/ household stuff. I made a huge master list on a day off a few weeks ago, but not too much has happened. In fairness, we’ve had family/ visitors a lot on the weekends. The house projects have just been barely squeezing in there on the periphery…. though I’m feeling motivated to shift more attention that way now this fall before we approach winter. I *might* even attempt to tackle cleaning out my storage room this long weekend (which was on my goals list for….2020).

3- While my 1:1 time with Ethan has been good, I feel like I haven’t seen Asher much!! I think this will naturally change now with him back in school, resuming our car rides to swim practice, etc. But I feel like he just kind of floundered around doing whatever for these last couple of weeks of summer, while my attention was fixed more on getting Ethan situated with high school. 😦

4- I have been spotty on my before bed skincare routine and have even slacked on my flossing! My days have felt full and long, and I’ve been guilty of sort of just collapsing into bed sometimes. My whole skincare/ teeth routine usually takes at least 10 minutes by the time I wash my face, put on various creams/lotion, floss teeth, brush, take contacts out… ugh. Some days I just can’t rally and skip everything besides brushing my teeth.

Overall, 8 wins to 4 fails = success! I’d say despite a lot of “frazzle” and some “overwhelm” in my life lately, I also simultaneously feel more grounded in many ways than I have in a long time, too. I think it’s an indication of how taking care of myself trickles down to everywhere else.

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Podcast Recs:

These are pairs- two from each podcast: 2 from The Lazy Genius podcast and 2 from The Girl Next Door podcast (which I guess I wasn’t subscribed to and kind of forget about sometimes, though I do really enjoy- so I went back in the archives a bit and listened to these two):

From The Lazy Genius:

1) How to fix dinner when you’re never home- ep. #279. Someone recommended this in my comments I think! It’s definitely worth a listen for busy parents. (Especially love her validating that it’s okay to eat take out or cereal for dinner if you’ve planned ahead and you’re like, you know what? Forget cooking, this is what makes sense on our upcoming crazy busy Tuesday night!)

2) How to lazy genius meal prep- ep. #300 Also good! I also kind of forget about The Lazy Genius podcast, though I really should listen more. Her main concept of “be a genius about the things that matter to you, and lazy about the things that don’t” is really…. genius. 🙂

From The Girl Next Door:

1) Thoughts on Middle Age & Aging. Very pertinent as my 40th birthday is coming up in October!! I really enjoyed this. They have such a light, refreshing take on it all.

2) The Work of Great Marriages. One I just stumbled across mid-workout when looking for something else to listen to last weekend. So many great tips on being good, fair communicators.

If you’re in the U.S., have a great long Labor Day weekend!!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for my airpods. A repeat, but really- I just love them soooooo much.