February Thoughts, Planning thoughts, Clothing Thoughts.

Lily loves drawing Unicorns.  
These unicorns are currently everywhere.

February Thoughts

I've decided to have a bit of a monthly focus for February, but I don't have a great word for it.  It's basically "do things to reduce stress".  Here's what I have so far:

• Sleep.  Get enough sleep. Try to get up early, but not if it means getting less than 7.5 hours of sleep.  Focus on bedtime over wake-time (wake time is pretty set by the kids)
• Move. Walking and stretching and low impact bike rides (not every ride needs to be a HIIT ride, even if they are super fun)
• Comfort. Don't be unnecessarily uncomfortable - make sure I am not cold or hungry.  Wear slippers. Change into soft trousers/pyjamas. Light a smelly candle or add a scent to the diffuser
• Environment.  Nightly house reset, for shared spaces.  I like waking up to a tidy downstairs.  I hate tidying up downstairs in the evening.  BUT... a tidy environment reduces my own stress so I will do a house sweep every night and put things away and try not to resent it.

While these things probably seem like good ideas for life I'm committing to them for February only because February is a short month and you can do anything for 28 days.

Planning Thoughts

On Sunday I sat down and wrote out a plan for the week.  It looked like a very exciting week - I had gym with my gym buddy, a live Peloton ride, our cleaner was coming... I was excited for the week ahead.

Maybe I often live in the future because it is exciting and fun in a way that now sometimes isn't.  Looking at my week ahead looked sparkly and full of possibility! Looking at the week behind included getting vomited on by a toddler.  Looking at the present on Sunday was... fine. Vomit-less.  But still, I fully expected my week plan to not happen.  

Rather than be sad about it, I tried to enjoy thinking about how much fun the week *could* be, while also realizing I would probably get vomited on and miss most of the things.

Monday morning I woke up and started reading Best Laid Plans and had coffee and did a stretch and looked at my planner and then the day went... well! I was able to think in work and had an overall very good day.  Unfortunately our cleaner cancelled (they have come once, and cancelled twice, which is why I'm not feeling  the "oh I have a cleaner it's great" vibes... but still at least our Bathrooms got cleaned once).

On Tuesday I was tired, did not do morning routine, but did get a Peloton shout out for my 200th ride from Bradley Rose! 

And I went to the gym with my gym buddy for a legs routine which was fun.  We do evening gym and so I didn't get to sleep until 10:30pm.

On Wednesday I woke up with the kids, rolled out of bed, downed coffee, got kids off to school, sat down at my desk and started responding to emails and doing other random unfocused work.  At 8:55 I had a pop-up notification on outlook for a blood test, which I forgot was booked that morning, so I ran to the car and drove really fast (and also slow because traffic) to the GP, where I arrived 2 minutes late (they cancel if you're 5 minutes late).  I had my blood draw, then went back home, then proceeded to be mostly unfocused until 3pm when I panic started to get work done and then didn't "finish" until 5:20 when I realized I was meant to get the kids and relieve the nanny by 5:30 so I ran to pick up and left everything an unfinished mess.

Anyways, my glorious "flow through live" organization system is still a work in progress. 

Clothing Thoughts

I know this should include real photos but clothing upgrade project is moving along!  The Burgundy Blazer from my last post is amazing and I love it.  The shoes were painful and returned.  I managed to find one dress from my new favourite store - Crew

I also found a pair of Chelsea boots from Clarks. Are they fancy? No.  Are they boots? yes.  As the British say - it does what it says on the tin

I used to love buying shoes and owned lots of shoes.  Now, work shoes are my final clothing upgrade issue.  I gave up and bought black work trousers from Boden, which fit great but are £75 which is why I resisted for a long time. 

Also they are not ankle grazing on me because I am not a tall model.

But what shoes go with work trousers?? I feel the internet will say "everything goes with black trousers".. but does it?! I am not wearing heels or pointy toe shoes.  I think my trouble buying shoes now is that I want between 99% and 100% comfort.  When I was younger my threshold was maybe 15% to 20%.  I remember once going out on a date with Andy where I told him I couldn't walk home because my shoes were too painful to walk.  

The brogues I ordered were both painful and ugly, so those have gone back.

I ordered these shoes, which I'm not sure are work appropriate, but I think they look cool.  Also £30 (down from £75) which might indicate they are actually not cool... but we will see.

I have a series of office days coming up and I am tired of looking dumpy or feeling dumpy or both.  Also, there are a LOT of things on sale now, so I've been able to try lots of things (the Blazer was £64 down from £129!).  I will calculate the cost of this office clothing refresh soon, but if you have any shoe advice in the interim please help!