a photo of deer in a greenspace next to a walkway Christine’s Own Travel Advice Mostly Worked For Her
ADHD · fitness · self care · traveling

Christine’s Own Travel Advice Mostly Worked For Her

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I am happy to report that my plans to take very good care of myself worked VERY well on my way to Victoria for my conference.

I packed good snacks, I made sure to buy breakfast in the airport, I moved the things I planned to do on the plane to the top of my backpack, and I walked around a fair bit and did a little meditation in the airport to ensure that I was as unfrazzled as possible when I got on the plane.

Once I was in my seat, I put my papers, markers, and water bottle in the pouch on the seat ahead of me and made myself as comfortable as possible in the cramped space.

After take-off, I made a loose plan of how I wanted to spend my time and set my repeat timer so I didn’t feel like any task was going to go on forever.

The timer will let me choose a length of time to work and a length of time to rest and how many times to repeat the cycle. It’s really handy, especially since my ADHD brain will sometimes refuse to start something – even something fun – if it feels like it will take a lot of time. Setting a timer creates an escape hatch and makes it easier to start.

So I alternated between reading, drawing, writing, and taking notes on some YouTube videos I had downloaded and took breaks for snacks, for stretching, for napping, and for meditating.

a drawing of overlapping ovals, each filled with a pattern, in black ink on a white index card. The card is resting on a seatback table on an airplane.
Here’s one of my drawings from the plane. image description: a drawing of overlapping circles with about half of them filled in with patterns on an index card drawn in black ink. The card is resting on an airplane table and a marker and my grey pencilcase is nearby.

The flight to Calgary for my stopover felt pretty fast but I did have one recurring annoyance because of time math.

If I were to write it as a story problem, it would go like this.

The first part of Christine’s trip is a 6h 20min flight to Calgary where she will have a 1h 5min wait before her flight to Victoria. If her initial flight from St. John’s to Calgary leaves 1h late but the pilot says that the flight will only take 5h 30mins, will she make her connecting flight?

And yeah, the math works out but when you factor in me wondering if I had misheard the pilot, and my concern that I had miscalculated time difference (Is this a factor? no. Could I shake the concern loose? also no), I ended up with a low-key worry that I was going to miss my connecting flight and my arrangements to share a cab from the airport in Victoria were going to get jumbled.

I eventually realized I could ask the flight attendant and I felt better after that but the brainloop was irksome in the meantime.

I made the second flight, got to Victoria just a little late, had lunch with my storytelling friends (Hi to Cindy, Shelah, and Brigitte!) and got to campus feeling pretty damn good.

The conference was great – I heard some marvellous stories, took some terrific workshops, and I was thrilled with how my workshop and my story performance was received.*

On Sunday, I was heading back home via Ottawa. I was relaxed and looking forward to getting home and I got to chatting with different storytelling friends in the airport (Hi Colette and Gail!) and didn’t really give much thought to the practicalities of the trip.

Actually, I kind of forgot my ‘take good care of yourself’ strategy.

In fact, even the need for it slipped my mind.

So, when I started to feel a bit twitchy a little ways into the flight and then I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure how long we had been in the air, I realized that I needed a plan or I was going to drive myself and my seatmate bananas before we landed in Ottawa.

I did my best to calculate how long we had left in the flight and I set my repeat timer.

And, once again, I alternated between reading, listening to podcasts/videos, napping, writing, and meditating. I made sure to eat at regular intervals, to drink lots of water, and to do a bit of stretching.

This worked out pretty well, just not as well as it had on the way up and the flight felt loooooong.

Once I landed in Ottawa, I opted to walk around and stay standing for the hour or so wait so I could burn off some of the energy I built up sitting on the plane.

I did the same timer trick for the last part of my flight – with a few more nap/meditation times because it was late at night (my flight was supposed to arrive at 12:48am and actually got in at 1:30am) – and I made sure to have lots of water and a substantial snack so I could head right to bed when I got home instead of having to make time to eat.

Even though it was a relatively short flight, it did drag a bit because of the late hour and we got in at 1:30am it took forever to get off the plane and get my luggage so it was almost 2:30am before I got home.**

Why am I including those details?

Because the time of day makes it hard to tell how effective my strategy was on the way home.

I think, once you are up into the wee hours traveling, you kind of have to surrender to a certain amount of off-kilter feeling, no matter what you do.

But, I do think that I felt better than I would have if I had just tried to forge ahead through my travel without any distress-management plans.

However, I have to note that the disrupted sleep on Sunday night/Monday morning really left me feeling out of sorts for the rest of the week and I was decidedly out of sorts until the weekend.

That’s why I am writing and posting this a whole week later – I just couldn’t make my brain behave last week and I am grateful to @samanthabrennan for posting in my place on Tuesday past.

Overall, I think my lessons here are that making a plan and taking good care of myself really helps me travel with less fluster. AND that I should try to avoid flights that arrive in the very early hours of the morning.

a photo of the bright horizon at sunset taken from a plane window with a plane wing in the foreground
I took this shortly after we left Ottawa. image description: A photo taken from a airplane window of the bright horizon at sunset. There is a dark area at the bottom, a stripe of red, then a stripe of orange, then lighter blue, then darker blue. In the foreground you can see the plane’s wing illuminated by one of the plane’s lights. It creates a great contrast to the dark in the middle of the image and the bright natural colours on the horizon.

*I taught an 1.5h workshop on how storytelling builds empathy and I performed a story about doing a tarot reading that asked, “What advice would my Dad give me?”

**Many thanks to the valiant Steve for picking me up at that late hour when he had to work in the morning!

cycling · fitness

Sam and Sarah (finally) ride again

Sam BLeave a comment

Sarah and I had a super road ride on Saturday. It wasn’t much by the usual metrics.  Just 35 km.  We did an extended version of our usual Hume loop.

But on the pleasure metric, we had sunshine, it was warm out but not hot, and we stopped for iced coffee on the way home. Lots of cyclists out there, and there were an awful lot of smiles and waves.

You know what was really striking though? It was our first time this year we’ve had our road bikes out. I think this is the latest in the year this has happened. It’s been a tough, cold spring and work and family have both been really demanding.

Getting ready was a thing.  We spent a lot of time getting ready: finding bike water bottles,  charging lights, electronic gear shifting,  and Garmins. Then there’s the sunscreen,  gels, and chamois cream. And inflating bike tires.  Don’t get me started on the heart rate monitor straps. I found mine finally, but then couldn’t get my new Garmin to recognize it. I gave up on that.

I had to keep reminding myself that next week will be easier getting out the door. And also that while I love all sorts of bike riding,  riding my go-fast road bike on perfect days like this makes me smile the most.

We’re riding our very bright and cheerful Sweet Ride Cycling jerseys from Sweet Ride Cycling in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. https://www.sweetridecycling.com/https://www.sweetridecycling.com/

Doing What TikTok Tells Me: A Two-Week Experiment
fitness

Doing What TikTok Tells Me: A Two-Week Experiment

Sam BLeave a comment

I have a complicated relationship with viral wellness trends. And thanks to my role as the blog’s cofounder and ongoing coordinator,  my social media newsfeeds are full of them. 

I’m deeply suspicious of anything that promises to optimize me before 7 a.m., especially when the optimizing arrives wrapped in hustle-culture packaging. Optimize your life! Morningmaxxing, or something like that.

I’ve written a bit about this before.  See What’s your 5 to 9 before your 9 to 5?

And yet I’m curious by nature, and a bit of a sucker for a good fitness challenge.

There was there burpee challenge,  lots of running streaks back in the day when I ran,  lots of Yoga with Adriene beginning of the year challenges.  Tracy’s done other ypga challenges too. And that’s just the start here on the blog. We seem to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with challenges here on the blog team. Who doesn’t really?

So here’s my plan: for the next two weeks, I’m going to stop scrolling past the daily challenge content the algorithm keeps serving me and actually try some of them.

I’ll report back at the end with a full how-it-went post. Consider this post the before picture.

Here’s what I’ve signed myself up for.

Challenge 1: The 9 enlivening movements. A short sequence of gentle movements done first thing in the morning — the idea being that you coax your body awake with a bit of mobility before the day gets its hands on you. The idea sounds easy, 9 movements in 9 minutes.

Here’s the list:

Hops/Bouncing: Light, bouncing movement to wake up the nervous system.
Body Waves: Rolling the spine to improve flexibility and breathing.
Arm Swings: Loosening the shoulders to restore range of motion.
Trunk Twists: Rotating the core to activate the spine.
Dead Arms: Relaxed torso rotation to release tension.
Golf Swings: Linking hips and torso to improve rotational strength.
March Slaps: Marching while tapping the body to boost rhythm and lymphatic flow.
Windmill or Side Lunge: Opening the hips and upper back.
Plié Squats/Ballet Squats: Strengthening the hips and ankles

Here’s a video with a chair adapred version: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWACMUODNN1/?igsh=MWRtOHlmcG0wNWtqbg==

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DRCjySkDGqK

Challenge 2: The 30-30-30. This one blew up on TikTok thanks to biohacker Gary Brecka, though the idea traces back to Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Body. The method is simple: eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up, then do 30 minutes of steady low-intensity cardio with your heart rate below 135 beats per minute. It’s pitched as a fat-loss and blood-sugar strategy, and I have Thoughts about that framing — which I’ll get into. Mostly for me, it’s going to be a way to get Cheddar out for a walk before the summer days heat up too much.

Challenge 3: The after-dinner walk. A short, leisurely stroll within half an hour or so of eating, said to help digestion and blunt the post-meal blood-sugar spike. The term went viral in early 2025 when Toronto cookbook author Mairlyn Smith shared her post-dinner walking routine and coined a rather more flatulent name for it, — a name I will not be using, because I have standards. I prefer just to call it the after-dinner walk, thank you.

Check back soon to see what survived contact with real life.

Challenge

Celebrating a birthday, a community, and a good cause with studio cycling
charity · cycling · fitness · fitness classes

Celebrating a birthday, a community, and a good cause with studio cycling

elan.paulsonLeave a comment

This past weekend I went back to the Lost Cycle studio for a workout.

I wrote about my trial with Lost Cycle previously, noting its inclusive vibe and sensory experience that left me (during a time of intense personal change) with an emotional as well as a physical workout.

Now I was back riding in the dark, this time for a private birthday party, and a pride-themed mental health fundraiser birthday party at that.

90s spin class playlist “ad” for our private event at Lost Cycle South

I know that @samanthabrennan hosts annual outdoor cycling rides for friends and family on her birthday. But I had never thought about how you could make your birthday party into a fundraiser for a national mental and wellness support organization, then have friends donate by reserving a seat on a studio stationary bike, then have that studio give you 50 minute of curated vintage 80s and 90s tunes, and (while you are sweating and singing) have your lovely exercise instructor wax eloquently about the importance of showing up and being loved and accepted by your community.

Oh, and then you get a popsicle or ice cream sandwich at the end.

There are many ways to celebrate and be celebrated on your birthday. If you are looking for an idea that outside the cake-hat-streamers-birthday box, then consider pulling together your favourite people and your favourite fun activity, then throw in some social responsibility and some frozen treats. It could be your best birthday yet.

In the studio after our birthday ride: tons of fun
Nat on getting up from a chair hands free
Fitness test · functional fitness · Sat with Nat

Nat on getting up from a chair hands free

natalieh (she/her)1 Comment

Remember in 2020 when the test to sit on the floor and get up without using your hands was everywhere? It was touted as a sure fire way to measure your health and fitness, especially if you are a senior.

Cheerful chairs without arm rests.

It always seemed to me that it was a test you could train to improve results. Would that training correlate to better healthspan or a longer life? I was never convinced.

Fast forward to last week and I was chatting with Dad. He was marveling at a woman my age getting up from a chair without using her hands.

I laughed and showed him that I too could stand up and sit down into a chair without using my hands.

My adult kids chimed in, sharing stories of people who flop down rather than descending under control. It’s not something one always has awareness of.

I shared that two years ago, when my knee was injured, I needed help getting up off the couch.

I would use the arm of the couch to help launch myself. It was painful and humbling.

Today I can lower myself well past 90 degrees to sit and get back up without assistance from others or using my hands. I credit good physiotherapy, deadlifts and squats for helping me regain the necessary leg and core strength .

This squat variation is much better than the more popular diddly squat.

I recounted this story with my physiotherapist, Emily, and we spoke about both “tests”.

Emily shared that in evaluating seniors careful attention was paid to how they sit down or stand up from a chair.

It’s a key activity in daily living and crucial in preventing falls, especially in the bathroom.

The end goal is independence in the bathroom.

I found this great resource about this exercise. Balance Program Sit to Stand No Hands on Chair

So whether getting off the toilet or out of your favourite chair, spare a thought for the technique you use. It’s really important!

If you aren’t satisfied with how your sitting and standing are going talk to your primary care provider for resources, tips and tricks.

Wikimedia commons photo of Serena Williams at the 2025 Tennis Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. Serena Williams is on a GLP-1 weight-loss drug and the NYT commenters have comments. Mine for them: “mind your own business”
Black Present · body image · competition · fitness · sports nutrition · strength training · tennis · weight loss · weight stigma

Serena Williams is on a GLP-1 weight-loss drug and the NYT commenters have comments. Mine for them: “mind your own business”

catherine w2 Comments

There’s big news in sports this week: Serena Williams is officially back playing professional tennis. winning a straight-sets doubles match with her partner, Canadian Victoria Mboko, over the 3rd seeded pair in the Queen’s grass court tournament in London. Mboko was unfortunately injured during the tournament, having to withdraw from further play for the time being. Williams plans to play with a different partner in the Berlin open next week.

Not sports news, but nonetheless reported by the NY Times and other venues: Serena Williams has been taking Zepbound, a GLP-1/GIP weight-loss drug for weight loss.

Here’s an excerpt from this NY Times article:

Williams, 44, said that she made the decision after trying just about every other avenue. She had not wanted to take “the shortcut,” she said on Oprah Winfrey’s podcast last August, but, Williams said, getting to where she wanted to be after her two pregnancies was not working through training alone.

“I couldn’t beat the weight. It was the one opponent I couldn’t beat,” Williams, who manages her treatment through Ro, a telehealth company for which she serves as a paid ambassador, said.

And oh, do the commenters have comments! But first, some facts:

  • Serena is one of the greatest athletes of all time, having won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, two Serena slams, 367 match wins, and lots more here.
  • We FIFI bloggers love writing about Serena, including here and here and here and here.
  • Serena has had two babies and is 44 years old, which means that biology wants her to weigh more now. Biology is very persuasive with bodies.
  • Exercise, even intense athletic training (especially for women), doesn’t bring about weight loss. Studies have shown this, and you can read about them here, here and here.
  • Commentators, including both professionals and randos, never miss an opportunity to offer opinions on Serena’s body size, shape, age, clothing, work, parenting, you name it.
  • Serena is taking a GLP-1 drug– Zepbound, which is tirzepatide, for weight loss.
  • She is a paid ambassador to a telehealth company (Ro) that sells Zepbound, and her husband is an investor in the company.

Now, to the comments. But– humor me–one more little thing:

Why, oh why, do so many people have so many utterly unfounded, unsolicited and unwelcome opinions about Serena Williams? I mean, really. For example: In a 2019 poll, one in eight UK men said they thought they could take a point off her in a tennis match. This was after her 23rd Grand Slam win. I’d love to watch them try. If you doubt at all, check this out.

Okay, now to the NYT commenters’ comments. They include a wide range, of which some are below.

  • They minded that Serena’s doubles partner wasn’t mentioned enough.
  • They implied that by playing doubles, Serena wasn’t really back; after all, she only had to cover half the court.
  • They implied that taking a GLP-1 drug is like doping.
  • They said confused and false things (some wildly wrong)  about the effects of GLP-1 drugs on muscle mass (fact: weight loss of any sort tends to reduce muscle mass)

They also said Serena was:

  • Self-prescribing (NO)
  • Offering medical advice (NO)
  • Doping in general (offering no evidence that she has and there is NO evidence that she has)
  • Doping because GLP-1s are performance-enhancing drugs (NONONONONO—I will be blogging more about this next week)

Then there were the science-splainers. This one was my favorite:

“it’s[GLP-1 effects] a consequence of how your body prioritizes what to break down for energy. This is governed by individual biology..”

NO. DEFINITELY NOT. SO NOT.

This one just made me mad:  

I don’t understand the argument that she couldn’t beat her weight issues. I remember a time, way before GLPs when people lost weight the good old fashioned way I.e eating less, working out and staying active. When Serena, who during her prime years was one of the fittest and most athletic tennis players of all time, now says the only thing she couldn’t beat was her weight, this leaves me scratching my head.

DO YOU NOW? Because there was NO TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY in which many/most people lost weight the old-fashioned way and kept it off. Also, Serena is a woman who has had two children, one while still playing world-caliber professional tennis. And she is now 44. Which brings me back to the biology fact from the first fact list.

If you admire or love or respect Serena Williams even a fraction of the amount I do, you’ll now be on your guard against this newest pile of anti-science-and racist-misogynist nonsense. But I can’t leave you all riled up with nowhere to go.

I leave y’all with my favorite auto-correct comment:

what a terrible message to send to youth antlers. 

Yes, let’s all be on our guard to protect those youth-antlers from GLP-1s in the wild.

A bunch of young moose in the wild.
Protect the antlers of our youth now from GLP-1s! Vamoose, I say!

Until next week, I remain irately yours,

-catherine

fitness

Listening to my Body

Diane Harper1 Comment

Since my surgery almost two months ago, I have struggled with the fitness regime assigned by the Heart Institute. It’s boring!

I didn’t mind when I had to do short walks and that took all my energy. But once I hit two half-hour walks a day, I lost all enthusiasm. After all, that was a 15 minute walk from my house, then 15 minutes to get home, twice a day. I have lived in my house for more than 35 years and know every nearby garden and most of the dogs. I need variety!

On top of that, the rest I was supposed to get wasn’t very restful, which just made me crankier.

So I did what every bad patient does and started making up my own exercise routines. First it was short bike rides, then an hour-long jazz class (so tired after but also so energized by seeing friends!). I added in swimming as soon as my incisions were closed. Most recently, I have returned to ballet class.

Me in my green bathing cap and goggles after my first swim. I was much happier than my goggle eyes make me look.

I have an appointment with the hospital physiotherapist to talk about my cardiac rehab program in a couple of weeks. She has already been warned that I would be pushing the limits of the normal recommendations, and said it would probably be okay as long as I listened to my body.

So I’m listening: early to bed, sleeping up to 10 hours a night, napping when I need to, lots of protein, fruits and vegetables.

Hopefully I’m doing well enough on the cardio goals that I won’t get lectures and I’ll end up with an approved exercise regime built around the things I enjoy.

If you have ever done rehab following illness or surgery, did you follow instructions exactly, or were you tempted to do more or less? How did that work out for you? Let me know in the comments.

People holding signs saying "yes to science" by Mitchell Luo for Unsplash. Research roundup: moving makes us happy and longer-lived. Still. Yay!
fitness · Research Roundup · Science

Research roundup: moving makes us happy and longer-lived. Still. Yay!

catherine wLeave a comment

Hey, remember way back a week or so ago when I posted about how some study came out saying that when we don’t engage in at least 10 hours a week of moderate-to-vigorous activity, THIS IS NOT ENOUGH?!

We all must feel, sometimes, that THIS IS NOT ENOUGH.
All the things they said, including: THIS IS NOT ENOUGH.

If you missed that one, check it out here. All the things they said/all the things they said(about exercise duration): this is not enough…

But guess what? There are new studies out saying, well, different things, which makes them not like the other studies I reported on.

One of these things is not like the others... A sheep dog with a herd of sheep.
One of these things is not like the others…

Turns out (according to this week’s science), any amount and kind of movement is good for just about whatever ails ya.

Yeah, I know. You knew this already. But still, it's good that more science says so.
Yeah, I know. You knew this already. But still, it’s good that more science says so.

Yes, you likely know this, but it helps to have data on your side. Here’s a blurb from this Outside magazine article about a recent study on longevity and physical activity:

The study zeroed in on 3,600 subjects between the ages of 50 and 80, and tracked them to see who died in the years following their baseline measurements. In addition to physical activity, the subjects were assessed for 14 of the best-known traditional risk factors for mortality: basic demographic information (age, gender, body mass index, race or ethnicity, educational level), lifestyle habits (alcohol consumption, smoking), preexisting medical conditions (diabetes, heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, cancer, mobility problems), and self-reported overall health.

The best predictors for how to live longer? Physical activity, followed by age, mobility problems, self-assessed health, diabetes, and smoking. Take a moment to let that sink in: how much and how vigorously you move are more important than how old you are as a predictor of the years you’ve got left.

Note that body weight/BMI are not on the list of good predictors of longevity. Again, maybe you already knew this, but it bears repeating.

In more new and unsurprising but happy science, a big cross-cultural study offers evidence that even light and momentary physical activity can help us feel lighter in mood and also more energetic. Here’s what they said:

Investigators discovered that even light, non-structured physical movements, such as household chores, climbing stairs, or short walks, trigger immediate elevations in happiness and energy. Strikingly, the data unmasked a continuous virtuous cycle: individuals experience a sharp mood boost shortly after increasing their physical movement, and conversely, experiencing an elevated mood naturally primes individuals to become physically active shortly thereafter.

The idea here is super-cool: physical activity and improved mood/increased energy create a virtuous cycle. Each reinforces the other. See the technical graph below that I MADE ALL BY MYSELF, WITH NO GEN AI to explain.

A virtuous cycle in much physical activity reinforces mood and energy, which reinforce patterns of physical activity, and so on and so forth.
A virtuous cycle in much physical activity reinforces mood and energy, which reinforce patterns of physical activity, and so on and so forth. You’re welcome.

The study gathered data from 8000 international participants, and has cross-cultural applicability. You can find more detail and an interview with one of the main researchers here. I love this main takeaway from researcher Yue Liao:

You don’t need a gym session to feel better. An increase above your own usual activity level will bring mood-enhancing benefits, especially by helping you feel more energetic. 

Or, in other words:

Every little bit counts. Yay, again!
Every little bit counts. Yay, again!

Happy Wednesday to us all…

group inline skating on city street Going in Circles (On Purpose) at the Emera Oval
community · cycling · fitness

Going in Circles (On Purpose) at the Emera Oval

Sam BLeave a comment

When Sarah and I told friends who live in Halifax where we were staying, they said, “Hey, that’s really close to the Emera Oval.” Then they went on to tell us what a cool thing the Oval is.

The Emera Oval is a year-round recreational facility on the Halifax Commons, a track originally built for the 2011 Canada Winter Games. It’s used for skating in the winter and as a multi-use rollerblade and bike track in the summer. And here’s the remarkable part: it lends out ice skates, bikes, helmets — and other wheely things too — all for free.

Turns out our friends were right. It’s close — you can see it from our hotel window. So this afternoon, during a break between talks (I’m in Halifax for the Canadian Philosophical Association meeting), I grabbed my folding bike, the bright pink Brompton, and rode over for a spin. I did half a dozen laps around the Oval.

I loved the mix of people out there: seniors and little kids just learning to ride, folks on rental bikes and folks on their own, with a few rollerbladers thrown in. Normally they divide the track into lanes, I was told, but it was too windy — the pylons kept blowing away. Check out the flag video below. There was something lovely about seeing so many people out on an ordinary weekday afternoon, riding around in circles with their friends.

It’s a small thing, maybe. But it’s the kind of small thing I wish every city had: a free, open, all-ages place to move your body for the sheer joy of it — no membership, no fancy gear, no barrier to entry beyond showing up. More of this, please.

A panoramic view of a green park featuring baseball fields, with a city skyline in the background under a bright blue sky.
View of the oval from our hotel room window

Want to know how busy it is? Check out the live webcam here.

Strava
The oval
Our hotel viewed from the oval
Me beside the oval track

How windy was it?

Flags blowing in the wind
fashion · fitness · walking

Bright Sneakers and Big Glasses

Sam B3 Comments

I’m not yet in my statement jewelry years.

But I’ve decided I’m at the Bright Sneakers and Big Glasses stage of my fashion life.

Right after knee surgery I switched to wearing Hokka running shoes. I’ve sold all of my heels, including beautiful Fluevogs with heels, on Poshmark.

Lately I’ve been back to wearing interesting shoes but now I’ve got a brand new good problem.  I can walk big daily distances and now sometimes my feet hurt.  it’s been years since I’ve been able to walk far enough to get sore feet.

See Sam and Cheddars Big Beach Day. See my Halifax walking day below.

So it looks like when I travel now I should pretty much only wear sneakers.

New fashion dilemma: Do I keep up the bright colours or do I get a plain black pair and try to blend in?

New seasonal dilemma: What about summer? Are there any sandals that you find comfortable enough for big days of walking?

Fashion and sandal advice welcome!

Here is the chat gpt version.  It got the glasses and the mug right but not the earrings and bangles.