Sunday again and it's officially spring. Every day is currently 5 minutes lighter than the day before. Which means in 2 weeks we will get an extra hour of daylight a day. It's honestly a bit excessive, I'm really happy for the sun to come up at 5am and down at 7:30 and never get longer than that. I guess I probably should not have moved to Wales and instead moved to... Albuquerque. Or Tehran. Maybe Wales is ok, even if it gets too light in the summer and too dark in the winter.
Reading
I finished All The Money in the World by Laura Vanderkam this week. It's a really interesting premise - how does money make people happy? I like the argument towards seeing money as a tool for happiness. I told Andy this and he said that buying lots of bikes would make him happy so he should buy lots of bikes. That's not really the point though, my first road bike ever cost £250 and made me so happy. My last road bike ever (or at least, untill I become a road rider again) cost £600 and also made me happy, but possibly less happy than that first bike. It's the hedonistic treadmill - we always tend to return to a base state of happiness and so you can't just buy lots of stuff to make you happy.
There was also an interesting chapter on how spending money on other people can make us happy. I know it's easier when you have money to share money, but also I don't think there is a threshold above which you have money to share and below which you don't have any money to share. Actually, there are definitely points where people don't have money to share, but there is a lot of mid ground. Anyways, I've decided to try and be more generous with people and see if that increases my happiness (or ruins my budget - we do have a gifts budget so I can at least monitor what we are spending). Last week a colleague who I like had a baby and I gave £10 towards her work present. A friend of mine went into surgery this weekend and I sent her a gift voucher for a food delivery service. Both these things made me happy.
I am still reading Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. It's just good. Also, once I got used to reading physical books again I decided I like physical books. I might read more of them. Kindle books were great when we had babies in the room, but now that I'm not waking up at night anymore (yay!) and reading for an hour or two it's nice to stick a bookmark in a chapter book when I'm done at night.
Sports
It's been another awesome week for sport. I am still ravenously hungry all the time but I am at least enjoying all the sport that's making me over hungry. I also got to do a workout with San on Peloton again - yay! On Monday I am going to be a total Peloton nerd and do my 100th ride and I've invited all 5 of my Peloton friends to join me. Maybe this time I'll get a shout out... maybe! Either way, 100 rides since buying the Peloton in October feels awesome.
- Monday
- 35 minute Peloton while watching Emily in Paris season 4
- 20 minute evening yoga flow
- Tuesday
- 1 hour yoga flow class IRL (I've done 5 in person yoga classes now, so 1/3 of the way to my 2025 goal of 15 in person classes)
- Wednesday
- 20 Minute Full Body Strength with Ben Alldis
- 5 Minute Core with Ben Alldis
- 10 Minute Upper Body with Ben Alldis
- 10 Minute full body stretch with Ben Alldis
- 1 hour run with local run club at night (it was a sprint session - ouch!)
- 10 Minute Focus Flow - Healthy Back with Kristin McGee (because I thought sprinting had hurt my back but it was OK)
- Thursday
- 20 Minute pop-punk ride with Bradley Rose
- 10 Minute HIIT ride with Denis Morton
- 10 Minute Focus Flow for Riders with Ross Rayburn (and San!)
- Friday
- 30 Minute Low Impact Ride with Hannah Frankson (live!)
- 15 Minute FOcus Flow for Runners with Denis Morton
- Sunday
- Junior Parkrun - 2k run with the kids
- 30 Minute Intervals and Arms with Olivia Amato (live!)
- 20 Minute Queens of Pop ride with Ally Love
- 15 Minute Full Body Stretch with Ally Love
This is where it's less good. My rolling average is 7 hours. I went out to dinner with a friend and stayed up until 11pm on Saturday. 11pm!!! Also, I've been waking up at 5 or 5:30, before the twins wake up, but without enough time to go back to sleep or do anything useful. Usually by the time I get downstairs I can hear Aubrey talking. Also, Andy and I watched a TV show on Friday called Severance because my slow cooker came with 3 months of Apple TV. <----(That sentence is so mid-life middle class I can't even)
This week we have no evening activities and I'm not doing the run club due to being in the office on Wednesday so hopefully it will be a more sleep week. Then the clocks spring forward on Saturday so that will be its own nightmare. Since our kids already go to bed super early it's actually the easier time change for us... although let's see if I say the same thing in two weeks. Time changes are the worst.
Are there any ways in which money has been a tool for your happiness in the last week? Have you watched the show Severance?
Hi, last week and money... Hmmm
ReplyDeleteTickets to the Irish dance performance+tacos with L, a glow serum from Sephora, my work reimbursing me for the conference (#yesss), small electric hot pot for our roadtrip to Outer Banks in NC, magnesium supplement to help with my shit sleep.
Been doing Peloton, too, and so far I love it- I hope my motivation continues. I mainly only do 20 min sessions for strength or yoga.
Hooray! I was so glad to see you on the LB AGAIN!! I'll join you for your Century Ride tomorrow! That's an awesome milestone! Congratulations!!
ReplyDeleteI have the best answer for how money was a tool for happiness last week: I booked Airbnb's for my CA trip in May! My best guess is that it would cost a lot more to live in these neighborhoods than in my home neighborhood in the midwest.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who was tight with a buck for most of my life, it has given me a lot of pleasure to finally spend money on myself (travel) and to toss the occasional $20 here and there where I think it will do some good.
I don't think I could ever go back to physical books as my preferred reading source. It's just so convenient to check things out on Libby. But never say never!
I haven't seen Severance but everyone loves it so it's only a matter of time.
That thing you are talking about with the bikes is the law of diminishing returns! We get less and less happy by getting more and more of something as time goes by. It's almost like we need to start with nothing again from time to time to make the good things more good again.
ReplyDeleteBob cost me about $450 and there were a lot of people who had much more expensive bikes, like in the four digits easily, who did not finish the Tour Divide so spending more may make you temporarily happy, but it doesn't give you superpowers!