Recently I’ve been torn between a desire to do All The Things (as is my usual wont) and to cut myself a break and relax a bit or to do something different than the usual routine. 

I think back to days where I’ve delighted in an enormous weekend Action Items list and now wonder exactly what I was thinking. 

Possibly all this activity is part of rather desperate need to prove to myself that I am efficient and creative and clever and diligent. 

Perhaps though I’d be better to occasionally break free from the household busywork and pottering and get out and live some more life?

This no internet at night really does make for Thinking Thoughts!

I’ve given up hoping for any sense of posting the 100 days of happiness photos in sets of consistent size.

This has been quite the challenge, particularly after an exhausting day at SML – but hey, that’s the point! On with the pix:

100 days of happiness: day twenty-five – I’m absolutely crazy for those Chinese lion-dragon creatures. #100daysofhappiness #daytwentyfive #100happydays #cny2017 #sydney #lion #worldsquare #happynewyear

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-six – complete stranger in awesome CAT DRESS! #100daysofhappiness #daytwentysix #catdress #100happydays #cats #fashion #sydney

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-seven – exciting parcel filled with new cycling kit! #100daysofhappiness #daytwentyseven #parcel #cycling #wiggle #100happydays

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-eight – geranium propagated from a tiny leaf 6(ish) months ago. Propagated ivy hiding in the background. #100daysofhappiness #geranium #daytwentyeight #garden #100happydays

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-nine – vacation Action Item crossed off. #100daysofhappiness #daytwentynine #visa #holiday #100happydays

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100 days of happiness: day thirty – broken frangipani branch rescued from the footpath. It remains to be seen if I can revive it! #100daysofhappiness #daythirty #100happydays #gardening #frangipani #plantrescue #flowers

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-one – at the pub – women’s sport on both TVs! Women’s rugby 7s. Women’s AFL! Go ladies! #100daysofhappiness #aflw #rugbysevens #daythirtyone #feminist #sport #100happydays #womenssport #innerwest #goladies

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-two – end of the easy-as-pie scarf in sight! #100daysofhappiness #knitting #daythirtytwo #100happydays #lace #cables #knittersofinstagram

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-three – pleased I returned to this book. May have to start again from scratch. #100daysofhappiness #100happydays #daythirtythree #fordummies #crypticcrosswords #incomprehensible

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-four – night light. Love the aura it casts on the wall. #100daysofhappiness #daythirtyfour #light #lamp #bedtime #100happydays

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-five – fallen leaf, hopefully signalling the start of cooler weather (though possibly just dead from heat). #100happydays #autumn #daythirtyfive #100daysofhappiness #fallenleaves

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-six – if I wasn’t already married, I would totally marry my air-conditioner. #100daysofhappiness #daythirtysix #100happydays #airconditioner #heatwave

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100 days of happiness: day thirty-seven – boss coffee! Squeezed into the luggage on the trip back from Japan last year. Every time I open the fridge and spot this, I am filled with delight! #100daysofhappiness #100happydays #daythirtyseven #coffee #souvenir #bosscoffee #japan

My fourth (or is it my fifth?) pilates class ever this morning. Definitely challenging – I’m glad I have a smidge of fitness otherwise I’d be completely terrible. All in all, I think I prefer yoga – I feel like the movements are more deliberate and controlled, which suits me better.

I spent the rest of the day on the couch with fans and the air conditioner on as cold as it would go. I had quite an awful headache for most of the day and just generally felt delicate and out of sorts. Doing absolutely nothing was probably the best thing for me. Apart from the headache, my brain feels rested  – or perhaps the was because of the headache.

It’s forecast to be horribly hot again tomorrow. 

1x multivitamin
efficacy: I don’t even know why I take a multivitamin. Am fairly certain is doing much at all, one of those just in case things.

1x glucosamine
efficacy: I feel like my knees creak less when I take this regularly. This could totally be my imagination.

1x hair, skin and nails
efficacy: pretty sure this is doing nothing – no glossy mane, nails quite dry and ridgey. Perhaps this is preventing them from being even more ghastly?

2x magnesium
efficacy: this definitely reduces cramp. when I’m not taking it I get cramps in my calf muscles quite frequently.

1x floss
efficacy: have had minimal dental issues in the 5+ years I’ve been religious about daily flossing. Some people can have great, healthy teeth without, I cannot.

1x nivea Q10 plus anti-wrinkle night cream
efficacy: fairly confident is doing nothing for my wrinkles. Stops my face feeling dry.

I’ve decided I’m taking Friday off as the replacement for one of the two annual leave days I worked in January.

At the moment all I have planned is a Pilates class in the morning, then I have no idea BUT I know it will involve a whole lot of not thinking about work.

I desperately need to reboot my brain, so suspect I will finish knitting my scarf (of course needs blocking) and watch some bad television. Perhaps I will also nap.

 I should probably take the other one this month too before we all forget it is still owing.

rather trippy kitty in the ikea clearance section

So I’m planning to compromise with no internet post-work by allowing myself to post one photo to instagram and to post one blog entry sometime in the evening – if I don’t manage it before I get home.

Not ideal, but hopefully should work. Hopefully also I can get back into trying meditation because it is quite desperately needed at the moment.

At this point I think I’d like to add a couple of restricted internet evenings into the rotation after the month is over – I’m finding it very peaceful.

ill-fitting cycling gloves

I’m sure it is no surprise that no internet after work (#47), #100daysofhappiness (#22), learning to meditate (#20) and blogging everyday are not playing at all nicely together.

Of course these difficulties are entirely of my own making!

After a week, I do very much like the no internet after work – it is very, very pleasant (and very relaxing) sitting around knitting, pottering and bonding with my peeps.

On the other hand, there is little time before work to construct a blog post and meditate (and do all the other things I like to do in the mornings). 

I’ll report back on my compromise – because that is the only way I’ll find a solution. A good opportunity to test my prioritisation muscles!

Completely disgustingly hot day. The kind of day that makes one wish on had done something about acquiring a new air-conditioner for the bedroom to replace the broken one.

9:44am: we’d just completed our bike ride – no wonder I found it challenging

2:10pm: heading out for lunch

It is currently 7pm and 34.7oC (though apparently feels like 35.9oC). I guess I should attempt to get used to these sorts of temperatures – only about 7 (or is it 8?) weeks until we head off to Vietnam and Cambodia. Woo hoo!

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Our oven died again last night in the midst of cooking dinner – it seems to not like temperatures of 190oC and switches itself off completely after about 30 minutes. It works fine after it cools down, but this is not really a practical solution to cooking! We went out looking at ovens this afternoon, fell in love with a couple, got home to do research and discovered the gas line for the cook-top snakes around behind the oven in such a way** that we’ll be extremely lucky to find something that will fit.

Alternatively, if the temperature stays like this, I could just leave the food out on the benchtop to cook itself.

We’re really, really tempted to go for the full kitchen reno so we can have a Huge Oven – but that probably would be over-capitalising. Also I don’t even want to know how much that would cost.

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** It’s really no surprise that the developer of this complex skipped town shortly after it was completed – so very much bodgy work! Though I am still very in love with ThePalace(OfLove) – despite it’s many, many flaws.

After 5 days of the no internet after work project I had 321 unread blog posts in my reader. I’ve been trying to squeeze blog reading in before leaving for work (amongst a billion other things), but clearly it got a little away from me!

Of course, I have been reading YOUR blog every day (or whenever you post), dear reader.

I finally caught up on reading this morning after a probably ill-advised 6km run**. This rather reinforced that:

1. I read a lot of blogs I could probably do without.

2. I spend a lot of time reading blogs I could probably do without when I could be doing Other Things (currently those other things are mostly knitting and watching television).

3. I’m trying to cram way too much into my mornings.

I just realised I’d made this project no internet in the evenings for a month, when I’d assumed it was no internet in the evenings AFTER WORK for a month. Oops. 

Pretend I wasn’t here.

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** 5min run | 2min walk intervals – first time ever trying run-walk. Haven’t run that far in about a year. Humidity was so high it fel like running through soup. Killed me. Ankle still not happy about it. Improved mood tremendously. Worth it.

more weeds – ikea walk

That was definitely a week. 

I’ve reached peak human contact  for the week – sometimes all that extraversion and love of talking just runs out! Back in the day there was always a juicy bit of data analysis to let me recharge batteries – now it is All People All The Time. I really love this, but wow, it does take some adjusting.
I’m very much looking forward to bunkering down and not talking to anyone other than Don, offspring and kitties. And a run and a ride and some bad television and knitting.