arthur_p_dent

Last night I slept like crap. A couple hours at best. But when I got up I didn’t immediately roll over and go for more sleep like I usually do. Instead I got up and made a coffee, and tried to push through. 

Well, by the time my “start exercise” alarm went off, I was barely coherent. And I seriously considered lying down to get an extra 45 minutes of rest. And then I fought with myself for five solid minutes about which direction to turn - the basement or the bedroom. It was a real struggle.

Eventually I convinced myself that even a light stint on the cycle was worth the effort, and I dragged myself downstairs (btw, this was the very first time so far that I didn’t choose sleep). But had I got my minimum of five hours sleep, there never would have been a question.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to talk about. Tomorrow’s a long day so hopefully sleep comes much easier tonight.

Ciao! =]

Yes, I slipped backward. Considerably too - only 67% completed last week. Sleep (or a lack thereof) is still steering that ship, and a busy weekend prevented me from catching up on missed exercise. Certainly not a trend I want to continue. Fortunately this week has started out very well, and last week’s shortcomings are great encouragement to keep it up. 

February is off and running, and it’s time for a couple of modifications to the plan. Nothing earth shattering - I still want things you be achievable. First is to add five minutes to the daily exercise, up to 35 minutes minimum per day. Future increases will come at two week intervals, ultimately reaching one hour per day starting the week following Easter. Also, my curling league is starting back up again this week, which I will be counting as a bonus exercise day each week.

Finally, I’m adding a weekly reading goal. Real books - nothing digital. I have a shelf full of old books from my childhood that I’ve been wanting to read again. They’re fairly short (under 200 pages apiece), and I feel comfortable that I can read one a week. So we’ll see how that goes.

Well, to sum up January, it was a bit of a bumpy start, but not at all unexpected or discouraging. Hell, the fact that I haven’t scrapped the whole idea already is a win all on its own.

I hope everyone else is making progress with your own goals. =]

Meant to do this yesterday - I had a regular Wednesday post going for a while, so I figured I’d pick that up again and do an update on how I’m doing with the goals I’ve set for myself this year. 

The overall target for the first few months is to improve physical health. I know, pretty cliche right? But the bottom line is that I’ve been increasingly unhappy with the direction I’ve been going over the past several years, and I’m determined to turn that around. The first week was a disaster, and I ended up getting a daily planner so I had some traceability. This has already been very beneficial - being able to see the good and the bad, and seeing patterns emerge.

Food-related items are going surprisingly well. I’ve only missed my daily limits on caffeine and alcohol once so far, and portion control on meals is heading in the right direction. The struggle with these things is that they can all turn into coping mechanisms very easily - it hasn’t happened yet but I need to be aware and recognize if this starts being an issue so I can deal with it.

Other things are much more of a work in process. Daily exercise is on the list, and when I do get started in the morning I enjoy it (always have). The motivation to drag my butt downstairs is still somewhat lacking however. That falls under “getting into a routine”, and I expect it to get easier over the next couple weeks.

The other thing affecting exercise is sleep, and this will be my biggest hurdle for the foreseeable future. Getting to bed and actually getting decent sleep has been a big problem the past year+ (Covid isolation wasn’t the cause, but it certainly made me cognizant of the issues that are). So far, sleep is the area where I’m seeing the least progress. And the noticeable pattern is that failures in other areas immediately follow nights where I’ve missed my sleep targets. Keeping a close eye on this one.

Today is starting out on the right foot. Despite missing my sleep target by about an hour, I did manage to get downstairs for some exercise (I chose the stationary bike so I could write this at the same time), and I’m feeling more energized already. Hopefully work doesn’t bring anything that might slow the momentum. =]

This post was on the long side, but future updates should be a bit lighter. Enjoy your day everyone - see you next time!

Today has been a bit of a roller coaster. A decent start, some annoying but necessary responsibilities, and a couple things that really pissed me off. So, let’s see if we can end the day on a bit of an upswing. 

Duolingo / languages / language learning is not on my list of interests. Frankly, I had been relatively apathetic towards the subject for the bulk of my life. But a little over a year ago I decided that it was time to broaden my horizons a bit. I am learning Dutch.

Why Dutch, you ask? Well, like so many of my anecdotes, this one has its roots far in the past. But not just my past - this time I have to start all the way back when my father was a lad.

My dad was born in a small rural town in the Netherlands. When he was 3 or 4, just after his first sibling was born, the family moved here to Canada, and over the years four additional siblings came along. Now, all of my aunts and uncles, having grown up entirely in Canada, embraced their Dutch heritage. Several married with other Dutch-Canadians, and all passed along varying degrees of that heritage to their own children. At least half of my cousins are fluent in Dutch (Frisian, actually), since they were raised speaking both languages.

However, my dad was the anomaly. He arrived here at almost school age, and in order to fit in with the other children, he made every effort to be as Canadian as possible, as quickly as possible. Learning English and eliminating his accent were a big priority. Outside of the house he never spoke a word of Dutch, he married a very Canadian woman, and during my entire youth I can’t recall ever hearing him speak a word of Dutch. In fact, it wasn’t until my grandmother’s 65th birthday party that I heard him speaking with the rest of the family and realized that he was still fluent after all those years.

That realization had been sitting with me for a lot of years. But growing up prior to the technology boom of the 21st century meant that learning a new language came with a lot of obstacles and commitments, which I could never resolve myself to overcome. Then came the “free time” afforded to us all by Covid, and my introduction to Duolingo. I figured if I didn’t take that opportunity to start, then I probably never would.

So I started last August, and hit the 1-year mark a few weeks ago. I’m honestly extremely surprised that I’ve made it this far without giving up on it. As of tomorrow I will have fully completed section 5, and I’ll start working towards my level 2 golden owl. I’m by no means fluent, or even conversational for that matter. I can generally understand what’s being conveyed by most written sentences, and that’s likely about as far as I’ll progress. But I’m OK with that. Sure, if I had my druthers I would have wanted to learn it from childhood, but last time I checked time travel still isn’t a thing.

For now, I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made, and we’ll see just how far it ends up going. =]
 

Wednesday is just starting, so there’s lots of time left to get your requests in for my open call.

For now we have a good one. Let’s take a peek behind the granny-squared curtain, shall we? ;]

As with most of my Wednesday posts, this one starts many moons ago in my teenage years. To give a real quick bit of backstory, my parents split when I was young, and my dad moved out west, got remarried, and settled down in a little town in BC’s Okanagan Valley. Several years later, my sister and I went out to spend the summer. 

Now, my stepmother had never had kids of her own, so an entire summer with an 8 and a 14 year old was probably putting a lot on her plate. And since dad was at work during the day, that left a lot of hours for her to fill on her own. I’m sure you’ve probably guessed by now that one of the things she taught us was how to crochet. My sister didn’t take to it too much, but constructing things out of other things was right up my alley. Simple things at first - dish cloths, pot holders, a scarf. Finally, the pièce de résistance of basic crochet projects - the standard two-colour chevron blanket. For a relative beginner it turned out fairly decent, and as I write this I wonder if she still has it.

So that’s where it started, but after returning home after that summer I didn’t really think any more about it. Fast forward an awful lot of years (decades actually) to about 2 years ago. A good friend, who was already accomplished at knitting, was going to try her hand at a crochet project. Since we were on the topic, I mentioned that I had once known how to use a hook myself, and that it probably wouldn’t take too much for me to pick it back up. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a ball of yarn was produced - the colour of which is best described as safety-vest orange. I can’t remember now whether what came next was merely a suggestion or an actual challenge, but the day-glow yarn was offered up for me to do something creative with.

I’m going to call it a challenge, strictly so that I can say Challenge Accepted! But what to make? Oddly enough you can find a lot of things on the internet (who knew?),and it wasn’t long before I came across a winning idea - a pair of shorts made entirely out of granny squares. Just like that, I was “hooked” again. Since then I’ve been picking away at it (the last two years have been a blur of other things in my life), but I’ve finally reached the final assembly stage, and I’m hoping to have them done by the end of this week. Don’t expect to see pictures here though - some things are best kept *off* of the internet. XD

I have a few more projects in mind to start on during the winter - something to help pass the time once all the craziness around the house settles down. Now that I’ve picked it up again, I’d like to keep it going.

And, now that tonight’s storm has moved off and the puppers has finally relaxed, I can drag myself off for a few hours sleep.

Enjoy your Wednesday everyone. =]

Edit 9/10/21: Aside from adding a few belt loops (a belt is going to be a necessity), the neon orange shorts project is finally complete!  8D

Before I get started, I’ve decided that I’m going to open up next week’s edition to requests. I’ll put up a post on Sunday for you to post your questions to, and I’ll add my replies on Wednesday. Just about any topic is fair game, even if you want to stray from the interests list - ask away. =]

I’ve tried my hand at a number of different instruments over the decades - guitar, trumpet, sax, piano, to name a few (since I’m not a famous musician, I’m sure you can get an idea just how good I got). I did manage to progress enough with the saxophone to maintain a spot in the high school band, but that’s about it. 

Wait. WTF? Has it really been 25 years since I’ve played anything?

Lately I’ve kinda had the urge to buy a drum set. Given my track record I know it sounds slightly insane, but hear me out. First, I am constantly tapping out some kind of rhythm - fingers on the desk, feet on the floor, etc. Second, I have tendinitis in both shoulders, which makes traditional weight-bearing exercise difficult. Third, it gets the heart rate going just as well as a treadmill, but isn’t nearly as boring. OK, so maybe I’m thinking about buying a new home gym disguised as a drum kit. Whatever - it’s still an instrument, so it still counts.

And if I become the next Neil Peart, I’ll be sure to let you guys know. XD