Tag: habits

a small drawing of a gold star with a happy face on it Go Team 2026: A Gentle Reminder To Give Yourself What You Need (When You Can, Of Course)
advice · fitness · Go Team · meditation · motivation · rest

Go Team 2026: A Gentle Reminder To Give Yourself What You Need (When You Can, Of Course)

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team, 

Here’s the short version of this post: It’s ok to give yourself the movement, the peace of mind, and the rest that you need.

I know this is not the first time I have given you (or myself) this advice but since I always need reminders about this stuff then I assume you do, too.

So, to reiterate:

Whenever you can, please, please, please, give yourself the things you need. 

If you need rest, then please get some rest

And please do that in a way that lets you meet your needs the best way you can in your current situation.

Resting doesn’t have to mean taking a nap (but a nap is great if you are able to take one!) It can mean resting in small increments, taking some deep breaths, pausing between tasks, choosing to limit the scope of some tasks, doing some yoga or stretching, or picking a restorative activity.

If your thoughts are feeling tangled and you need to meditate or journal then please meditate or journal. 

And please do those things in the way that meets your needs. 

Journaling doesn’t have to be pen on paper, it can be typing on a screen or drawing on an envelope or using voice to text or creating a collage or anything else that makes your thoughts more tangible and organizable for you. 

Meditation doesn’t have to mean sitting still (but that type of mindfulness is totally cool.) It can mean colouring, or doing walking meditation, or drawing a series of small lines, or doing a task with great care. It’s more about the nature of your attention than the specific activities involved.

If you need to get moving, then please get moving.

And please do that in the way that meets your needs.

If you need intense exercise, then push yourself hard in whichever ways are available to you right now. 

If you need slow movement, then take your time. 

If you need to lift heavy, lift heavy. If you need to lift light, lift light. 

And please don’t feel like you need to limit yourself to doing some sort of established routine. It’s totally ok to put on some music and flail around like a fish that got washed up on the beach. It’s totally ok to head to the playground and swing on the swings. It’s totally ok to do squats while you watch TV.  And it’s totally ok to stretch while you talk to a friend. 

As long as your movement meets your needs, then forge ahead.

If you need something, then please do what you can to meet that need. 

Even if you feel you *shouldn’t* (I still hate that word!) need it.

In fact, ESPECIALLY if you feel you shouldn’t need it. 

Your needs matter. 

You matter. 

And if you need some sort of permission before meeting those needs – in whatever way you are able to meet them at the moment – then consider that permission granted. 

I may not be the boss of you but I am perfectly willing to boss you into being kind to yourself. 

(Yes, I *am* the oldest sister, how did you guess?)

So, Team, please, please, please take good care of yourselves out there. 

And here is your gold star for your efforts to meet your needs – whatever they happen to look like right now. 

Go Team Us!

a small drawing of a gold star with a happy face on it
This little gold star cheered me right up. If you have a minute, draw yourself a gold star – you won’t regret it!

Image description: a drawing of a cartoonish gold star with a happy face on it. The drawing is on a piece of white index card and the background behind the star includes a bunch of small marks (some dots and some are a little more like lines) and five short lines that are near each point on the star like it is either glistening or in motion. The piece of index card is propped up between the keys on my computer keyboard which is black with white letters.

advice · fitness · habits · mindfulness

Positive is Practice – Sam’s 3 Good Things

elan.paulson1 Comment

I interviewed Sam about her regular habit of sharing “3 good things” from her days on her personal social media feed.

EP: You often post “3 good things” on your personal socials along with photos. How long have you been doing this, and has your reason for still doing it changed since you started?

SB: I started six years ago in November. November is gratitude month, and it’s also my least favourite month of the year, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to look around and find things to be grateful for.

I’m not sure exactly when I started doing it year-round, maybe two or three years ago? I liked it so much I didn’t want to stop when November was over.

Why do I keep it up? I like the way it makes me feel. But also, and I notice this more these days, the practice itself trains me to start looking around for good things.

EP: This tracks with something I heard on a recent podcast about negativity bias. We’re wired to overfocus on the bad (to the point where we overlook the good), but intentionally practising the positive can help us rebalance. The researcher called it gain-framing, seeing experiences through a positive lens or treating setbacks as opportunities to learn. Does that match your practice?

SB: Yes, that definitely matches my experience. I do a bit of only good things and a bit of reframing. I’ve got a close family member in the hospital. Not good. But good that they’re getting the excellent medical care they need.

A woman in glasses looks through her fingers Ina square frame shape

I also share bad news. I’m one of those academics, for example, who posts about rejections. It’s not just good news. Junior scholars need to see that rejection is part of the process. I also share when I stop doing things, so it doesn’t always look like I’m doing more new things without stopping others.

EP: The podcast researcher talked about the value of sharing positive experiences with others, which reinforce them and connect us to others through that sharing. Do you think about how others receive your posts? How do you feel sharing them?

SB: I do worry sometimes that people think it’s all good things all the time, but there’s a lot of bad at work that I can’t share on social media for a whole host of reasons. Ditto bad personal news, which often involves other people, and sometimes it’s their story to tell, not mine. Sometimes I find it hard to get the valence right.

EP: It sounds like you are aware of thr bad, but it’s not always shareable. So that’s another reason why you just choose to focus on the good. And maybe that you don’t want the terrible to stop your from seeing the good?

SB: I find that seeing the good helps me understand what we’re struggling for, why it all matters. The world is a beautiful place.

We were canoe camping this past weekend and I loved the light on the water, the sounds of the birds, watching a hummingbird on the flowers, swimming with loons, basking on warm rocks after swimming in a cold lake, the taste of hot tea and cookies, swaying in a hammock and napping. So many good things.

EP: How would you recommend that others try out sharing “3 good things,” and what to do on the days when thry feel negativity bias creeping in?

SB: To be honest, I’ve skipped 3 or 4 days over the years where things were too bleak to do it. I think that’s okay. That’s life.

I keep a Google doc on my phone, called Three Good Things, for myself. But I also share on social media for the habit and the accountability. For a time I thought about starting a blog just focused on tracking workouts and sharing good things. You could do that too.

Listen to “Stepping Out of the Shadows” from Hidden Brain, hosted by Shankar Vedantam, with psychologist Alison Ledgerwood (University of California Davis).,who explores negativity bias, the deeply human tendency to hold on to what went wrong and overlook what went right. In the episode, Ledgerwood unpacks why our minds are drawn to losses and threats, and what can be done to rebalance our attention. 

a photo of a dog standing in some greenery Christine inches slowly towards her 2026 movement goal.
ADHD · challenge · fitness · goals · walking

Christine inches slowly towards her 2026 movement goal.

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

When I started The Conqueror 2026 challenge in January, I set myself a goal of 730 kms of deliberate exercise* for the year.

For those of you playing along at home, that would be the equivalent of 2 km per day, every day.

Why ‘the equivalent’?

Because I don’t actually care all that much about walking that specific distance.

What I care about is increasing my daily exercise/activity levels and the Conqueror challenge lets me measure everything in terms of distance so all of my fitness activities are adding up to the same thing. *

If that sentence made you say, “Wait, what?”, please allow me to clarify.

  1. The distance was pretty arbitrary in the first place – I picked it to represent the approximate amount of activity I figured I could do most days.
  2. I don’t care specifically about walking that distance, I care about doing that much activity.
  3. The app lets me input other activities – like calisthenics, yard work, or dancing – into the tracker and tells me the walking distance that is equivalent to that activity.
  4. Since my ADHD self tends to struggle with tracking/measuring progress, especially if that tracking is overly detailed or fine-grained, having everything translated to distance is really helpful. AND having everything rolled into one metric reminds me that all of the different types of exercise I do are all part of the same goal – feeling better and moving more easily.

But even though the tracker is useful and has helped me to be way more consistent than I would otherwise be, I am currently behind on my challenge.

a screencap of a walking challenge tracker
a screen cap of my challenge homepage that shows two gray rectangles in the centre the top rectangle says ‘goal distance 730.0 km’ and the bottom rectangle says ‘Reason – to challenge myself to move a lot each day.’ behind the rectangles are two images that will be on the eventual medal I will receive. In the upper right corner is the long neck of a dragon outlines of clouds behind it. The dragon is gold and the cloud outlines summer gold, and some are bronze. In the bottom left corner is a grey silhouette of a howling wolf sitting on an outline of a rock and there are outlined clouds behind it. At the bottom of the image is a circular logo that says ‘Conquer 2026’. And shows two trackers. The top one in gray and black indicates that I have travelled 42% of the distance. I need to travel this year. The bottom one indicates that 57% of the year has passed. Underneath both of those is a sentence that reads 103.7 km behind your planned pace.

Luckily, I’m not fazed by this in the least.

There were definitely times in the past when I would have ditched the challenge by this point because of the focused effort it will take to close the gap between my current position and the ideal position for this point in the year.

But this current version of myself is looking at that gap and thinking. “I can totally close that!”

And guess what?

I’m right!

It may take me until the end of September but I am 100% confident that I will catch up, keep going, and earn a 2026 Conqueror challenge medal.

I’ll let you know how things are going at the end of August.

*And ‘deliberate exercise’ means additional movement that I have chosen to do – i.e. I am not measuring steps that are part of my daily activities.

**Besides fitness, of course, but the idea of being ‘fitter’ or having a good ‘fitness level’ is not even remotely tangible.

fitness · running · training

Tracy’s C25K is taking longer than 9 weeks and that’s okay

Tracy I1 Comment
Image description: Overhead shot of white running shoes on a dark hardwood floor. Shoes show a bit of wear and tear, laces untied. Photo by Tracy Isaacs

Back in early April I posted about easing back into running with the Couch to 5K program. It’s a nine-week program and I had high hopes of being able to complete it as written, within the nine weeks. In my original post I said I’d report back at the end of April with an update, and I thought I’d be done by the end of May.

Well, life has a way of not cooperating with the best laid plans, doesn’t it?

Things started to go sideways when late April got ridiculously busy with the end of classes. Then I had an intensive photography workshop in Indiana where it rained pretty much all the time. I took my gear but I had neither time nor energy nor weather to get out for my runs.

And then I four days after I got back I lost my mother. And that was it. For the next several weeks life was a surreal blur of grief, spending time with others in grief, and making plans to celebrate the life of a wonderful and much-loved woman who we were expecting to be with us for some years to come. It was very sad. And there was no room for a training program.

I have regained my footing enough to get back on track and have almost completed Week 7 of the program. The big jump from reasonable walk and run intervals happens in week 5, where the third run suddenly has a 20-minute continuous run flanked on each end by 5 minutes of walking to warm up and cool down.

Week 6, which is behind me now, goes back to more run-walk intervals but ends with a 25-minute run (as always, 5 minutes of warm-up and cool-down). And Week 7 is just three 25-minute runs, repeating the third day of Week 6. I don’t anticipate any new hurdles (let me touch some wood!) to get in my way. If I’m right, that means I’ll bring the program to a close in the first week of August.

So how’s it going? On balance I’d say it has gone and is generally going well. I did not use the C25K app. Instead I set up the intervals on my Intervals Pro app, and when we got to the longer continuous runs of 20 and then 25 minutes I used the Nike Run Club apps guided runs with Coach Bennett. He’s cheesy but oh so encouraging and makes me feel like I can do it. And so I did that for the first 25 minute run. The other day I did one on my own, using my own inner voice to self-coach in Coach Bennett style. That was my best run to date and I felt a real sense of accomplishment.

I felt nervous about the 20-minute run in week 5 and the 25-minute runs at the end of week 6 and throughout week 7. I have not done a lot of continuous running training in my life, opting mostly for the 10-1 run-walk intervals that the Running Room promotes in its run club, which is where I got my start.

There is an ongoing debate about whether to do continuous running or run-walk intervals. Some people say that over distances the pace balances out and you get a little break to look forward to every 10 minutes. That makes it psychologically easier for some people. I have tried both ways but I admit that I feel like more of a badass when I do continuous. I also find it in some ways easier to maintain a slightly slower consistent pace for longer than to start running again after a one-minute walk break. The countdown at the end of the break sometimes feels as if it’s signalling a fresh new punishment. It’s all attitude and different things work for different people, but at the moment, not taking walk-breaks makes running a more positive experience overall for me. I also had my best 10K time ever (way back when) after the only time I consistently trained for continuous running rather than 10-1 intervals.

I am feeling enough back on track that I even have plans for when I’m done this program and can do 30 minutes of continuous running. I don’t think I will hit a 30-minute 5K, but even in my 50s I couldn’t do that. I’m going to do the Run Less, Run Faster cross-training plan that follows the FIRST method where you do to do three “quality”run and two cross-training workouts (I’m going to swim) each week. I’m also adding some resistance training and a couple of yoga sessions each week. The runs in that program are purposeful: one tempo, one speed intervals session, and one long run.

I’m working on the 5K distance and signing up to do a local 5K in September. I’ll post more about that in a bit. Meanwhile, wish me luck as I embark on the final couple of weeks of C25K. I can see the value in this program and I recommend it for anyone just starting out or wanting to get back into running.

a photo of purple lupins (flowers) with a bright blue sky and water in the background (Finally) Circling Back to Trisha Durham’s ‘Movement Snacks’
ADHD · fitness · functional fitness · habits · mobility · self care

(Finally) Circling Back to Trisha Durham’s ‘Movement Snacks’

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Back in Planuary 2023, my Dad was in hospital and my time was very limited so I was using movement snacks from Trisha Durham’s Instagram account and, later from her book, Movement Snacks to add more movement to my days and to help me take the edge of my stress.

I found the practice quite useful at the time. Having a list of small movement prompts that felt useful, that kept me from stiffening up too much, and that could be done quickly made a huge difference for my mental health at a difficult time.

I know that I kept it up for a while but I don’t remember noticing when I fell out of the habit of doing them*

In fact, I had essentially forgotten all about them until I came across the book again this weekend and actually said, “Oh! Movement snacks! I love them.”

I flipped through the book right away and picked a movement to do (I put my arms overhead and wiggled my fingers and the like) and as I did that, I had an idea…

“Do you know what would be better than having these listed in a book? If they were on separate cards or something so I could just pick one out at a time without having to flip through them.”

And that, my friends, is how I spent a chunk of my Saturday cutting up a photocopy of the listed movements and separating them into two types.

The first group was ‘overall practices’ – like taking the stairs, parking further away, etc., and the second group was ‘quick things’ – like using a ribbon to practice balancing skills or standing on one foot to brush my teeth or stir a pot.

Now I am trying to decide the best container to hold all the movement ideas (and I strongly suspect that I will be decorating the container AND the slips of paper but I will leave that as a fun treat for Future Christine) so I can just pick one when I am so inclined.

A selfie of the author sitting on the floor, wearing a black shirt.
This is from before I rediscovered the book but before I took this I was practicing getting up off the floor without using my hands for support so that’s totally a movement snack! I look a bit cranky because I wanted to be better at that project than I was. Image description: A head-and-shoulders selfie of me – a middle aged woman with a round face and shoulder length light brown hair that is kind of wavy/curly here – sitting on the floor. I am wearing a black shirt and a slightly disgruntled smirk. Behind me you can see the light green wall of my bedroom with a bunch of photos and decorations on it – including a string of star-outline lights hanging up behind me. Also, I can never seem to remember to look at the camera instead of the screen so I am looking downward a bit instead of straight ahead.

PS – Sam wrote about exercise snacks in May of this year and Catherine wrote about them in September 2024 but the ‘snacks’ they describe seem to be slightly different than the ones in Durham’s book. While she has some suggestions – taking the stairs, parking further away, etc., that are more exercise-y Durham has much more of a focus on mobility/movement rather than on getting a few minutes of cardio in. I guess that’s why the book is ‘movement snacks’ rather than ‘exercise snacks!’ Also, I agree with Catherine that using the word ‘snacks’ is much more likely to make me think of food than exercise. Don’t worry though, I make sure to have plenty of both kinds of snacks. 🙂

*My Dad actually passed away in May of 2023, just a few months after my initial post, so my timeline for those few months is blurry, to say the least.

A photo of a wire card with the word decide drawn on it. Meditation Jumpstarts Christine’s New Exercise Routine
ADHD · habits · meditation

Meditation Jumpstarts Christine’s New Exercise Routine

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I started the Hybrid Calisthenics routine last Monday and I swear I can feel a big difference in my movements already.

Yeah, I know, it’s unlikely that I actually have many results from a single week of focused training but my brain is convinced otherwise so I am just rolling with it. 

In fact, my brain is so convinced that it isn’t fighting me on finding time to exercise every day. Instead, it has let me just get started* when I reach ‘exercise time’ each day. This is virtually unprecedented. 

And I think this shift comes down to two things:

  1. A meditation on Insight Timer called Train Like An Athlete**  in which Amanda Sellers said (among lots of other helpful things), “You don’t need motivation, you need a decision.” 

I swear when I heard that, I actually said ‘Oh!’ out loud.

I don’t know why that really hit home at that moment – I know perfectly well that I don’t need motivation but perhaps subconsciously I didn’t believe it until just then. 

Right after I listened to the meditation, I got out of my chair and did some stretches, squats, and standing twists just to keep myself in the right frame of mind. 

And later that day, when I was mowing the lawn, I reframed that chore as exercise and decided to make sure to push myself a bit harder throughout the process.  My ADHD brain loved the feeling of that decision and it loved the fact that I was accomplishing two things at once. 

The good feeling of DECIDING to move my body more effectively lasted through the rest of the yard work the next day and brought me right up to Monday morning when I realized that I could build on the momentum of the last two days by choosing a new exercise program and starting it RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT. 

And that’s when the Hybrid Calisthenics app kind of floated into my mind. 

  1. The Hybrid Calisthenics program app is VERY straightforward and VERY clear.

I have sort of tried the program as outlined on the website before but I didn’t get very far with it because, as I now realize, I don’t do very well with just a list of exercises.

When I just have a list, I always either push myself too far and overdo it early in the process or I don’t push myself enough and I get bored with it. 

So, while I love Hampton’s friendly and encouraging style on the Hybrid Calisthenics YouTube Channel   I had kind of filed his program away for later.  You know, the perfectly logical process of putting a program that will help you slowly build your fitness on hold until you feel fitter. (Note: please read that sentence in a dry sarcastic tone. Include an eyeroll if you can.)

But once I took a look at the app, his routine felt a lot more possible so I once again took Amanda’s advice and made two decisions 1) to give the routine a try and 2) to follow the routine as it was laid out – no second guessing, no figuring things out, just following the instructions in the app.

Before I knew it, I was doing two sets of 30 wall pushups and two sets of leg extensions, recording my progress on the app, and feeling a real sense of accomplishment. 

It must have been the perfect combination and level of exercises for me because while my muscles were a bit tired the next day, they weren’t discouragingly sore and I could do the next part of the routine without strain or stress. 

And now it’s a week later and I could increase my wall pushups by a few reps this morning. 

All because I heard that line “You don’t need motivation, you need a decision.” and made a decision at just the right time. 

Now I just have to keep deciding to show up for myself. 

Go me!

*Task initiation is notoriously hard for the ADHD brain in general and my ADHD brain in particular. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=adhd+trouble+getting+started

**The full meditation isn’t available without a membership but here’s a sample – https://insig.ht/a0IpEg5jK4b)

a brightly coloured calendar of resilience tips from Action for Happiness Jump Back Up July? Sounds like a plan.
fitness · habits · health · mindfulness · self care

Jump Back Up July? Sounds like a plan.

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

This month’s Action for Happiness theme is ‘Jump Back Up July’ and their calendar is full of small steps to help you build your resilience, to increase your ability to face challenges, to notice your strengths, and to be kinder to yourself.

Now, as I am sure you can guess, I don’t really think that we have to *jump* back up every single time but even staggering back up gets us back up and trying again.

Cultivating the inner fortitude to try again when things go awry, to be compassionate when we make mistakes, to ask for help when need it, to reframe challenges, and to nurture hope throughout the process can serve us well in so many areas of our lives (including fitness!) that the effort to build our resilience skills is worth the effort.

Even though many of these practices are already in my regular repertoire, I’m going to make a point of practicing them during Jump Back Up July (or Get Back Up At Your Own Pace Using Your Choice of Movements July which is more accurate for me but far less catchy. 😉 )

Are you in?

Here’s the Jump Back Up July Calendar :

a brightly coloured calendar of resilience tips from Action for Happiness
The ‘Jump Back Up July’ calendar from Action for Happiness. I will, of course, be using this for ‘Get Back Up At Your Own Pace Using Your Own Choice Of Movements July’ too. Image description: A calendar for July 2026 with each block coloured in a repeating pattern of dark green, light green, orange, and yellow. The text in each block is a daily tip for building the skills to ‘Jump Back Up’ and the edges of the calendar are decorated with black and white cartoon images of people doing resilience activities such as hugging someone or carefully repairing a loved object.

And here’s a tip video from Action for Happiness featuring Vanessa King:

A video from the Action for Happiness YouTube channel called ‘Coping with challenging times. Jump Back Up July with Vanessa King’ on the left side is a still image of Vanessa King, a middle-aged white-presenting woman with reddish blonde hair that is pulled back from her face on the sides and top but with her bangs curling down towards her eyebrows. She is wearing brown-framed glasses, a black shirt, and a green scarf decorated with white flowers and gold-coloured leaves. She is looking towards the camera and smiling and there are two books and a vase of flowers behind her. On the right side of the image is a light blue rectangle with text that reads ‘Resilience. Bouncing Back’ in red and ‘3 top tips with Vanessa King’ in yellow.

Here are a few links about resilience that you may want to check out:

Leo Babuta – A Guide to Habit Resilience

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – Building Resilience

Dr. Tracey Marks – Is Your Brain Stuck? How To Build Resilience Through Microregulation.

Robert Waldinger – How To Ease Suffering By Widening The Container

A painting of a gold star on black paper with encouraging text on one side. Go Team 2026: Keep Showing Up
fitness · fun · Go Team · goals · habits · health · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Keep Showing Up

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

When was the last time you celebrated showing up?

If it has been a while, then please take this post as a sign to pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself, and claim your gold star.

And if you congratulated yourself earlier today?

Well, pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself again, and claim your gold star.

If you’re like me, there will be times when you are really challenging yourself and times when you are just kind of treading water.

Both are good.

In fact, the whole range of ways to show up are all good.

And I’d like you to celebrate every one of them.

I am proud of you for showing up when it’s fun and I’m proud of you for showing up when it’s annoying to be there.

And I hope that, overall, you get more fun than annoyance but here’s your gold star for your efforts either way.

Go Team Us!

A painting of a gold star on black paper with encouraging text on one side.
I’ve been trying out gold star cards with encouraging text and I like how this one turned out. Image description: a black card with a small painting of a gold star on the left side. On the right side is a piece of white card with rounded corners that says, in black text, “ this gold star celebrates your hard work, the effort you put into showing up every time. Congratulations! I’m so proud of you.” The white card is framed in black with a gold frame outside of the black one. There is a thick gold line a little ways under the star that also extends downward underneath the white card.

Nat is back at strength training
Sat with Nat · strength training

Nat is back at strength training

natalieh (she/her)Leave a comment

Somewhere along the way strength training fell off my routine over the last six months.

I injured my lower back in the winter. Part of my recovery was limiting some types of movement. I had to be very careful with what activities I did to not further aggravate my lower back.

While strength training helps recover from and prevent lower back injuries I found myself sticking to my physio but not much else.

Dumbbells with rubber coating are nice a quiet when I put them down.

Michel and I started back with a Peloton 30 minute full body class on Sunday. He loves Andy as an instructor and I love heavy metal music. Thankfully Andy has a few heavy metal workouts so we were both pumped to get back at it.

I prefer my workouts to feel like a rock concert.

The first class I used three pound dumbbells to warm up and five pounds for the core movements. I focused on form.

Two days later my pecs were tender. What? Even with that light of weights?

Last night we did the same class again right after work. I bumped up to 10 lb weights for some exercises but stuck with fives for the rest.

I caught sight of my reflection during a suitcase squat. I appreciated how strong I felt and how quickly my body was responding to training.

How I feel in strength class, jacked!

Michel looked at me. “I love you so much. Thank you for doing this with me.”

He is starting to hate strength training a bit less. He credits that to us making it a date. I love that we can modify moves, swear and complain in our basement without bothering anyone else.

It is no small feat, to regularly carve out time for strength training. I had thought with me being retired I would feel an abundance of time. It is surprising how many demands are on my time. My expectations have also changed. I suffer from being an optimist and underestimate how long a given task will take.

Our goal is to lift weights three times a week. I do love it. I feel badass and the heavy metal music makes my heart sing.

Metal is working class opera. I love the big feelings, intense vocals and shredding guitar. The music gives a place for my effort filled grunts and complex thoughts about my fitness to go. It’s a winner.

Rock on my friends.
Nat’s no good at limiting gardening time
Sat with Nat

Nat’s no good at limiting gardening time

natalieh (she/her)Leave a comment

I swear it was just a couple weeks ago I Adopted a new motto of “little and often”.

This week flipped that upside down and lit it on fire.

I started on the holiday Monday with a list of things that needed to be done before fence replacement work would start on Wednesday.

My youngest kid, Jean, came over. We dug up plants to move them out of danger. We moved and flipped the contents of two composters.

Michel cleaned out our garage and mowed.

Dividing and conquering we got lots done.

Tuesday was even more frenetic gardening.

Wednesday my contractor arrived and I puttered around outside and kept myself available.

Thursday I gardened at my place for three hours before flitting over to Heather’s for some visiting, snacking and, oh yes, two solid rounds of weeding. Then back home for more outdoor work.

Nat grimacing at the camera. Her face says “not so little but very often”

Friday, more work on my gardens in the morning and time with my friend Phyllis in the afternoon. I brought her scant amount of transplants and in return she filled my car with plants.

I got home, had a light dinner then quickly set to work planting all my new plants so that Saturday’s rain will help them adapt to their new home.

This has been a boon to my average step count. I’ve been averaging 9,500 a day over the past year. This week I averaged over 13,000.

A bar graph showing values for each day of the last week ranging from 8,000 to 18,000 steps on a given day.

Somewhere in there I had physiotherapy and a massage. I’m taking care not to aggravate my lower back and stick to daily physio exercises.

It is pretty typical that I put a lot of effort into my gardens in the spring. This year I feel like I’m making fast progress. I want my gardens to be lush and full of life without looking unkempt. It’s tricky because my garden is informal and uses a lot of native plants, folks sometimes think it’s merely overgrown.

Here’s to my efforts reducing a bit over the coming weeks as I focus more on writing and crafting.