Tag Archives: holiday

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!