Time to blog + other New Year misc.

The first week back into the new year here came on HOT for me!

It did not help that I was out for almost 2 weeks, between vacation and then illness. I think the first post-holiday week is heavy for most people, since both school + work tend to do a proverbial “reboot”. There’s always a sense of like, “Okay, party’s over, time to dive into ALL the meetings and ALL the projects and requests and ideas that everyone stalled on and previously said “we’ll look at that after the holiday season…” womp womp…

Fortunately I am feeling mostly better energy-wise. My cough is still lingering around and over the past week moved from a dry cough to loose, productive cough. Definitely decreased frequency, but still there. There still seems to be large amounts of “gunk” coming out of my head/nose, too. Unfortunately, I now also have this sudden very sharp pain on my right side like in my ribs when I cough or breathe too deeply, as of yesterday afternoon. (It really really hurts! Like I have to hold my side when I cough.) For a minute I thought maybe I cracked a rib coughing or something! But now it seems a lot like pleurisy. Sigh.

I do FEEL much better, thankfully. I’ve been back to exercising since Monday and that has felt good. I’ve been doing well with my goal to eat some protein and fruit or veggie at every meal! The much reduced soda schedule has been going great, too!

All these remaining goodies from my volleyball Christmas party could go bye-bye now, though:

I have felt pretty well organized thanks to my annual/seasonal planning sessions, but my biggest issue is always just that everything I WANT to do or NEED to do does not always quite… fit.

When I exercise consistently, and also want time to journal/plan my day, and ideally read a little, and walk the dog, and take daily showers!, and run errands, and cook some meals at home, and do chores/housework, and you know, work my fulltime job and see my family and all the rest, there’s not a ton of leftover time on an average day, at all. (At least not particularly useful time. Like, I’m free from 9-10 pm! But that time is basically a dead zone, lol.)

Whenever I try to do the Ideal Week exercise, the pieces literally do not fit. Or if they do, it’s probably not actually a realistic sketch.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been having some trouble fitting my blog life in right now. Sadly, it’s kind of the lowest on the priority list, so when something has to go, well, it makes sense that it’s that.

I’ve been moving more workouts to the morning (since lunch time can be inconsistent), and I swear I have some sort of appointment at least once a week that disrupts my day. Morning exercise means the rest of my morning routine time gets cut very short, very quickly, and I really don’t want to/ can’t get up any earlier.

If my lunch hour is free, I still don’t really love the idea of blogging then in general, because I sit at a computer all day for WORK. I don’t really want to spend my break time also sitting in front of a computer…. Also, there are often little household tasks I try to get done on lunch, or Charlie needs to go out, etc.

I am generally not in much of a creative headspace at night. Besides, everyone is home and we’re often doing stuff and I don’t know, it just feels “meh” then.

Part of my issue is also that I can struggle to write posts super quickly. Yep, I know I’m way too wordy and it’s a lifelong challenge for me to concisely say what I want to say 😅, depending on the topic. Plus, I often need/want some time to choose + add photos, I might need to add some links, or even just organize my thoughts a tad first before writing.

So, if I only have a very small window of time, I’ll often feel like… eh, I really don’t have enough time right now to write a post. (I hate getting started with a thought or post and then getting cut off… I know many people successfully write in batches/ work on posts a little at a time, and maybe this is something I can keep trying. It’s felt unnatural to me in the past, I think since I tend to write in “real time voice”, but maybe I just need to keep working on it?)

Anyway, I do love writing here (and reading other blogs!) but I don’t currently have a well defined spot for either to go. 😏 Today’s post is brought to you by the fact that I woke up at like 3:45 and never fell back to sleep, and finally just got up extra early. ha.

I did use one of my lunch breaks this week to set a timer for 26 min to work on decluttering part of my office! (one of my household goals I’ve not yet blogged about).

Yay! Behold my desk drawers, which were overflowing with notepads and old and now irrelevant work stuff and several old planners/ notebooks! Ahh much better.

(My goal is to set a timer for 26 minutes ideally twice a week to work on decluttering an area. Our house isn’t too bad or in need of any massive declutter project, but my office seriously needs attention (and a few other select spots).

26 minutes here and there feels do-able, yet theoretically, if I did that just 2x/ week all year, it would be 2,704 minutes of decluttering, or 45 hours!! I think I could make some serious traction in 45 hours.

Okay, almost time to head to the gym. Ivan has committed to going to the gym 2x/ week this year (Tues/Thurs- he also plays soccer on Sundays (and sometimes Saturdays), and he wants my moral support! It definitely is easier to get out the door with someone else…

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for some very mild weather this week. Has been in the 40s and has felt downright spring-like!