Tag Archives: holiday

Happy Father’s Day

I still haven’t spoken to my father yet, but I’ve got my kids here and dinner is being picked up as I write this. Sushi. All my favourites.

I spent the morning shooting a round of arrows followed by a quick workout. While I didn’t shoot my best, it was my first round where I scored all gold.

A success even if it wasn’t a personal best. I had a few line breakers that squeaked in, but as my buddy always reminds me, a 9 is a 9 and a 10 is a 10… take them when you get them.

My afternoon was busy. I installed my water fed solar panels on my garage roof. This took longer than expected and everyone was pitching in, but the hard part is done!

And food has arrived. To all the dads out there, happy Father’s Day! It’s time to have dinner with my family.

A whole-lot-a noth’n

I didn’t think I’d spend the last days of my March break coasting, but I have. Usually a break for me is a time to refocus on fitness and really push myself. Not this break. Yesterday and today involved long naps and very little done.

I had some fun shooting arrows, and I had a lovely walk with my wife… and I did a whole lot of nothing else. It’s a bit anti-climatic, but I also realize something interesting. Usually I need to get a lot of exercise in, and push myself on my breaks, because I’ve been a sloth during the time that I’m at work. But until last week, I’ve had at least 5 workouts a week all year. I’ve been pushing myself since January 2019, and I’m in great shape. Sure the past 2 weeks have slid me off of my new fitness goal, but so what? I’ll get right on that tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest.

I’m going to chalk this up as a needed break. I’m going to blame covid. I’m going to write it off and start anew. But for now, I’m going to squeeze this daily post in after 11pm for the second night I’m a row. I’m going to forgive myself for missing my first meditation in about 140 days, last Thursday, and I’m going to count my 5k walk with my wife as my exercise for today.

I’m also going to shoot some more arrows tomorrow, and skip the email catchup until I get to work on Tuesday. I’m going to ride out tomorrow as my last lazy day of holidays, and hopefully hit Tuesday morning with a whole lot more energy. But tomorrow, I’m giving myself full permission to do a whole lot of not much, and feel good about this as a choice I’m making to end my break.

Work on the brain

Got an email from the district to send to parents about the new Covid-19 rules in effect when we return to school on Tuesday.

The big changes for our school bolded:

o All students Grades 4-12 are required to wear a mask inside schools both within and outside their learning group.

o All staff K-12 are required to wear a mask inside schools both within and outside their learning group.

Essentially, students and staff will be wearing masks all day, as opposed to having the option of removing them when at their own desks. This is important information, and as instructed, I’ll send it off to parents (and students and staff) tomorrow.

Since reading that email, my brain has been on work, and on the pandemic. Things to do, and things to be concerned about. Sometimes I can’t let things go. I can’t relax. Today feels like it was a work day, even though I didn’t go to work. It’s going to take a bit to get back into holiday mode. I want a few more days of holiday brain before work brain fully takes over.

Taking a real break

There’s always more to do.

Always.

But sometimes you just need a break. Or rather, I do.

Spring break is here and I’ve got a two week break. Shortly after I return I’ll have an opportunity to book my vaccine. I’m heading into a break with optimism and hope… and I’m letting go of work for a good part of this time.

I’ll spend time with family, shoot a lot of arrows, workout (hard), binge watch some shows, listen to a fictional book… and do a little bit of nothing without feeling like I’m procrastinating.

There’s always more to do, but now is a time to do things for me.

TGIF

In BC, Canada we have a Family Day holiday on Monday. It’s a long weekend. I am not someone who counts down to the weekend or to the next long holiday. I don’t begrudge workday Monday mornings. But right now I’m looking forward to having the extra day off next week.

No, I don’t have any plans. Pretty sure it’s going to be a catch-up-on-the-cleaning weekend at home. But it’s going to be nice and relaxing too. It’s going to be at least 2 days not thinking about work. It’s going to include walks, and maybe some fun shooting arrows.

Sometimes, it just feels wonderful knowing that it’s the Friday before a long weekend. I’m going to take that feeling with me to work today, and as busy at it might get… it’s going to be a great day.

TGIF!

Getting back in gear

We had an incredible holiday planned this summer before COVID-19 hit the world. A trip to Barcelona, a cruise with stops in Spain and Italy, and a week in Portugal. This didn’t happen, but we still had a wonderful summer with BC based destinations. I had my email vacation auto reply set up, and for the first time in years I really ‘let go’ of work.

This week we’ve already had a few virtual meetings and I have one more today and tomorrow, before kicking it into high gear next week. But I have to admit that these meetings, where we are planning for September, have my mind racing as I think about the new school year.

The biggest things in my mind are:

1. For Coquitlam Open Learning – how do we maximize support and appropriately staff for an unknown influx of students?

2. For Inquiry Hub Secondary – how do we maximize the learning experience while focusing on safety, and also considering possible changes in phases?

In the end, much decision-making is out of individual control as our district makes a concerted effort to meet the needs of all learners. But unlike other schools, COL and iHub are different, and need special attention and considerations.

I don’t have answers to many questions yet, but I’m getting more comfortable in not having immediate answers, in living with ambiguity. But as High MacLeod says, “‘Learn to live with ambiguity’, but do not live in it.”

As we get into gear planning the new school year, I’m sure we are bound to find ourselves with more questions than answers. Patience, thoughtful questions, and priorities around care and safety of our students will help us find a good, supportive path for our schools and our learning communities.

Back to time restricted eating

Other than about 6 weeks of Keto a couple years ago, and a few training diets more than half a life ago, I’ve never really dieted. That said, for over a year and a half now, I’ve tried to practice time restricted eating (also called Intermittent Fasting) five days a week – Sunday to Thursday night.

I have only been doing 14 hours fasting and much of that was sleeping. What it primarily does is restrict my unhealthy snacking after dinner, and delays breakfast, which I’ve never enjoyed preparing and eating.

Covid has messed up my schedule, summer made it worse. My good eating habits that I developed with restricting my eating window have all disappeared. So, along with my wife, we’ve decided to set a strict 5-hour window for eating for the next few weeks. We have only water, and a morning black coffee during our 19 hour no-eating restriction. When school starts I will move to 16-8, increasing my eating window to 8 hours.

It was weird to start this on a holiday to Kelowna. It limited our schedule of wine and cider tasting tours, but we filled our days with hikes and visits to the beach, and neither of us struggled with hunger after day 2. The only oddity was doing a long drive with no snacks.

There is a lot of research being done on the benefits of time restricted eating. I won’t go into it now, but I will say that it has three really positive affects for me:

1. It cuts out unhealthy snacking.

2. It stops me from getting ‘hangry’ – angry when I’m hungry. My sugar levels seem to stay in check and food (or lack of it) doesn’t come with mood swings.

3. It eliminates breakfast, which I don’t enjoy eating. (Breakfast is breaking the night’s fast, it’s not a morning meal time… technically I’m having breakfast whenever I choose to start eating after sleeping.)

I’m less than a week in, and I’m not sure this 5-hour eating window will be enough when I start pushing myself on my morning workouts again… but I’m really happy to have restarted my time restricted eating.

A break and a lapse

Well I ended up taking just over a week off of my Daily Ink, with plans to do some writing outside of this space. I didn’t. I did have a wonderful break, including from social media, and I’ve been very slow to return. I also listened to a couple books for pleasure and truly enjoyed the break.

That said, I really didn’t write anything at all, and I’ve let my email completely pile up. I don’t feel bad about this, it has felt good to let go of things. Even today I slept in, had a really slow start and am sitting with my laptop in my back yard enjoying the sun and sipping coffee as I type. So while I’m going to make some observations about how I’ve wasted some of my time, I’m not doing so with any guilt, I’m just making observations around my expectations versus reality.

Writing: In about 9 days of not writing daily here, I ended up making 3 notes in my phone regarding the other writing I wanted to do. I can’t say that it wasn’t on my mind but without a routine and setting time to intentionally sit and write, it just never happened. I planned to do what I’m doing now, enjoying the sun outside while writing, but I never actually dedicated specific time to do so. My rest and relaxation never seemed to include taking time to write.

Meditation and exercise: I missed 2 days of meditation and 2 days of exercise (one of them being the same day) thanks to not having a regular routine. I had a long streak on my Calm app broken, but I started a new one yesterday. Last nights workout was minimal and it took me way too long to do so little. Again the lack of a routine hurt me. Still with respect to exercise, 5 days of workouts in a week is pretty good and I usually take at least one day off anyway.

Diet: I’m not on a diet, but I try to eat well and for the start of the year I was regularly doing intermittent fasting (14 hours minimum) 5 days a week. Covid ended that and I’ve never really recovered, but the amount of junk I’ve eaten the last week is horrible. I forget to eat then gorge on junk and my upset stomach has been telling me that I need to get my eating under control.

Social Media: I didn’t miss it. Not even Twitter. I thought I was going to take a break from news as well, but I didn’t although I should have. I’m disheartened by social media right now. It is polarized to the point the facts and reality no longer matter. Call-out culture, angry Karen videos, quick fixes, miss-information, anger, hate, pandemic fear… it seeps into my timelines and make me want to close my accounts.

The week+ of being off is over, and “I’m back”. While I enjoyed the break, I look forward to building a more consistent routine of fitness, meditation, and writing again, with a hesitation to spend much time on social media for a while yet. It’s funny, I thought I would need to stop writing here to get into the mood to write elsewhere, but in reality I need to keep writing and just choose to write more, (and actually make it part of my routine). I’ve enjoyed myself during this break, but I also lapsed a bit in the routines that I’ve built over the past year and a half, and I’m ready to build these positive routines back into my summer schedule.

Spicing it up

My sister is visiting and she is a foodie. I can’t believe how much I’ve eaten this long weekend, and she is preparing pork chops for a late dinner tonight. I’m actually about to get on the treadmill before dinner… I need to burn some calories!

She also brought me 3 versions of a family pepper sauce that I love and I’ve already had a meal where I portioned Spanish rice into three sections to try each sauce. This made me think about how different people spice their meals. Growing up, I had a friend who added salt to everything he ate. He wouldn’t even taste the food before giving the salt and pepper shakers a shake over his plate. I do this with black pepper into any cream soup. And certain meals I add pepper sauce to without tasting it first. For example, pasta with a meat sauce always tastes better with some of our family recipe pepper sauce. I don’t need to taste first before adding spice.

How often do we do this, we add a spice before even tasting what we are about to eat? We layer on the sauce or the gravy, or we add salsa or cream cheese to a meal. We get accustomed to what we like and we spice things up out of habit. This time with my sister has made me appreciate what it means to enjoy food and eating, and to think a bit about how to spice up my diet. It has also made me question my portion sizes when I enjoy a meal. Spicing something up and enjoying it shouldn’t mean that I also consume much more… but this weekend I really overdid the volume of food consumed.

I think I need to spice up my workout too!