Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

 It's Sunday again.  This week was a rather wild ride.  A bunch of non-bloggable stuff happened (Oh I finally get to be a vague blogger!) but all of it is mostly good or will soon be mostly good.  In addition to all the crazy stuff, normal life happened.  For instance, I took Ezra and Lily to the ballet and they got to take a photo with the dancers:

It was a children's ballet and it was 40 minutes long which is just the right amount of ballet for me too.

Also we took the big kids on a big train adventure.  They did great.  

FYI, living in a country with trains is great if you want to take 2.5 hours and spend £50 to get somewhere that would take 90 minutes and cost £30 to drive and park.  

Also, since we don't let the kids have screen at home, they really loved these feedback stations and spent about 15 minutes playing the "video game"

Reading

I finally finished The Dictionary of Lost Words.  super interesting premise.  And a bit... meh to read. The book is sort of about the production of the 1901 Oxford English Dictionary, and how the dictionary was predominantly written by men.  I can see the author's interest in who decides what words are word and how the entire dictionary is a rather classist / gendered approach to differentiating "real" words from "other words". It was an interesting topic, just maybe not the book for me right now.

What to read next though?! I want to read another Wedding People.  I loved that book.  I've started my real copy of Meditations for Mortals, but what if Oliver Burkeman's other book (4,000 weeks) was the perfect book and I already read it and this is just a worse version of that?  Like how I started reading The Plan by Kendra Adachi but decided The Lazy Genius Way was just better.

I also got a Libby/Kindle copy of Amazing Grace Adams but have not started reading it yet.

Sports

Last week I decided writing a list of my sports was boring and I wasn't going to do it anymore, and then I immediately spent a week doing barely any sport.  Perhaps my sports list keeps me going, in which case I am now going to start writing it again.  Sorry not sorry?

• Monday
• 15 Minute Arms & Shoulders Strength with Rad Lopez
• 15 Minute 90's ride with Hannah Frankson
• 5 Minute Core with Emma Lovewell
• Tuesday
• 90 Minute hot yoga with my yoga buddy
• Thursday
• 20 Minute HIIT and Hills with Ally Love
• 15 Minute Hill Climb with Ally Love
• Friday
• 1 Hour gym session with my writing buddy (I know, my writing buddy is now my gym buddy! My gym buddy was away this week and I feel like I was cheating on him but also... working out with new people is fun too. )
• Sunday
• 1 hour run (5.2 miles, 11 minute miles).  The kids were at Sunday School for 90 minutes and I went for an out and back run through a really nice part of town I never spend much time in.  It was a fun explore, and my longest run this year.

On Thursday I was in work and complaining to my colleague about things and she said "you should go do a 20 minute peloton ride" and I did and I felt waaaay better.  I've had a lot of trouble focusing in work this week, and while I definitely had days in the office where I got nothing done before, it feels weird to be unfocused at home since usually I am super focused at home.   I've decided if things get me down I need to do exercise first and complain second.  It was good advice from my colleague.

I normally go to the gym with my gym buddy on Fridays but he was away this week and magically my writing buddy was free so we went instead.  She usually does cardio machines but I brought her to the free weights area where we did some bench press and overhead press and I pushed a sled with her standing on it and it was super fun.  I love bringing more women into the free weights section of the gym. 

Sleep

On Thursday my rolling average for the week was 6.25 hours which is NOT GOOD.  Andy and I had a date night on Friday and we went out for pizza and wine but still made it back for a 10pm bedtime (being old is great).  On Saturday we had a reverse lie-in (going to sleep early is how grownups sleep late) and were asleep by 9pm.  I've managed to claw my average back to 6.92 hours, but  I will definitely be in bed by 9pm tonight.

One of the cool things about tracking my sleep is that I am aware that I am not feeling well because I am not getting enough sleep, and I am aware that I need to get more sleep soon, and it helps me realize that my life isn't going off the rails, but a few small things are not great and more sleep will help.

Other things

I made these Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars for Ezra's lunches, but I substituted Tahini for Peanut Butter.  They are not as good with Tahini, but we are not allowed nuts in the school.  I thought about asking whether Sesame was OK, but since I send him with hummus every day I figure it's probably fine.

Our grocery store finally restocked canned pumpkin (they had been sold out since thanksgiving!) and so I made both pumpkin waffles and pumpkin pancakes this week.

I can hear birds in the morning now.  And it was a balmy 13c/54f today! I wore a jumper and no jacket for a while! I ran in a short sleeved shirt! Spring might come agian!

Do you like canned pumpkin?  Have you ever tracked your sleep and did you learn anything interesting?  Are you in a reading slump right now?  I feel like a lot of people are!