Hello wonderful Imaginary Internet Friends! Thank you for your lovely comments and kind thoughts while I’ve been MIA.

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You may recall that late last year I was feeling extremely meh. The bounce-back in that post lasted only a very short while, so I took myself to SuperHappyFunGP – who sent me for a load of blood tests.

In good news my thyroid levels are still A+ (thanks Eltroxin!), but I had quite the Vitamin D deficiency. I am totally not surprised at this – like most Australians I have had sun exposure = bad drilled into me for a long while** and currently much of my life is spent Extremely Indoors.

I’m now taking a Vitamin D supplement and doing my best to get outdoors every day and sensibly get sun on me.

SuperHappyFunGP did confirm that I am post-menopausal (no surprise)^^ and (surprise) flagged that I possibly have mild Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. We discussed general sleep and energy management.

I’m not quite unconvinced I have CFS. As an example – while on our absolutely magicalAF winter wonderland holiday we did tons of activity and I felt wonderful. But now I’ve been back for a month and reflected on how we spent that time – we also did lots of lazing about reading and generally chilling in between all that activity.

Now we’ve settled back into life, I find myself pretty tired generally and utterly exhausted after my two in-office days. February is not a great month, I don’t think the heat and extreme humidity is helping me. Thank TheUniverse for air-conditioning.

I’m a little more sold on this energy management idea. And even if I don’t have CFS – whatever helps, right?

And it might seem totally counter-intuitive, but I’m also trying to get out and about a little more because I’ve really sunk into an extreme rut. I definitely benefit when there is more variety and new experiences in my life – but at a slow and sensible pace!

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** though unfortunately this was not the messaging in my formative years where it was All Sun All The Time.

^^ He was planning HRT pending blood-tests, not required because of these results – I’m glad to not return to wild hormones!

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Happy 2024 Imaginary Internet Friends!

I hadn’t quite anticipated vanishing for 2 months, but on reflection the unplanned break was really beneficial. I had no idea how much I needed to rest and to reset a whole bunch of things.

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And this happened:

Matterhorn!

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This year I’m trying an experiment.

For the first time in a very, very long while there will be no annual intentions, no goals, no plans, no streaks*, no challenges. I’m going to just roll with whatever comes at me, which is very much in line with my life goal of Being More Penelope.

* except of course for my obsessive DuoLingo streak.

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The Universe sending me nudges …

A Relaxed Woman

“Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman. Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty. Anxious and afraid and apologetic women? Heaps of them. But relaxed women? At-ease women? Women who don’t dissect their days into half hour slots of productivity? Women who prioritize rest and pleasure and play? Women who aren’t afraid to take up space in the world? Women who give themselves unconditional permission to relax? Without guilt? Without apology? Without feeling like they need to earn it? I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman like that. But I would like to become one.”

― Nicola Jane Hobbs (via the excellent SwissMiss)

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Saving the earth one washed ziploc bag at a time.

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A little blip in the daily posting routine there.

I’ve been feeling quite low and maudlin for the past few weeks. Everything has felt hard – like wading through treacle. I have no business feeling like this because objectively this year has been great with very many good things happening. This actually makes feeling low worse because then I excoriate myself for not feeling more upbeat and thankful. Oh Brain!

I mean it could be a billion things – biorhythms, stars or chakras out of alignment, overheated thyroid meds, some distant planet in retrograde, not enough exercise, moon phase, microbiome off kilter, a curse, too much computer, too little computer – really who can know?

Sometimes you just need to wallow for a bit. Reader, I really let myself wallow.

I woke yesterday feeling much more positive with renewed energy, which is quite a relief.

Onward!

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Barbie vending machine – World Square

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Saturday afternoon outing: Tessie Overmeyer Trio and Shannon Barnett quartet at St Stephen’s Uniting Church – part of the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival.

What an amazing venue for music! And there are regular performances there. Who knew? I will definitely return.

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Spotted on today’s walk:

+ a jumping fish!

+ a dude riding a unicycle

+ a bearded hipster dude wearing red and black lumberjack shirt cracking whips. Fluorescent yellow whips. In kind of a whip-cracking burlesque dance fusion.

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The thing about tracking your walking is that you realise how very sedentary you have become.^^

And of course you are reminded how very easy it would be to (re)develop a full-blown tracking obsession.

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^^ If I hadn’t started the 100 days of walking, this would be pretty dire. As it is there’s definitely room for improvement.

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Jacaranda season

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