I love getting together with family over the holidays. It’s a chance to focus on being together, eating, and being merry. 2025 hasn’t been easy, and it’s nice to spend the end of the year with the people I love and care about.
I hope everyone is doing the same, finding people they care about to spend time with. If not, make the hard ask. There are people who care, reach out.
Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays.
I’ve been feeling ‘off’ on top of issues getting a good night’s sleep, and that has thrown my schedule out of whack. Compounding this, I just joined a gym and the just over 30 minutes commute time to get there and back has thrown off my morning routine. I already get up at 5am and I’m not pushing this to 4:30 to compensate. So, I need to readjust my schedule. On top of this, I’m just 2 days away from winter vacation so my entire routine is about to get upturned anyway.
So what gives way to this? When there is a major disruption in the smooth running of my routines and habits, what breaks? Well, if I can help it… nothing. No, I won’t skip a day writing. No, I’ll never skip 2 days in a row working out. No, I won’t accept that this is a crazy time and I’ll just get back to my schedule when there is time.
That said, I’m probably going to end up moving something to the evenings. I actually have given up a puzzle I do each morning called Strands, and I don’t do Wordle first thing in the morning anymore. But more importantly, I won’t let scheduling be the reason that I don’t get my personal goals done each day.
I’ve said before that it’s the hard days that make you stick to a habit, but it’s also the way you handle your habits when your schedule doesn’t cooperate. When there is a metaphorical disturbance in the force, and things are not as they should be, these are the times habits are made or lost. Because habits are easy when they are neatly stacked into the routine of the day. But take away that routine and suddenly the habits take a lot more effort.
I guess I’ll just have to ‘use the force’… of momentum, of expectation, and of commitment to make sure that while my schedule and routines are totally disrupted, my habits will consistently prevail.
Just spent a week at my sister’s house visiting her family and my mom. I managed to get 4 nice hilly walks in, and a casual bike ride, but by far this was the longest I’ve gone without really working out in years. I’ll count the walks as exercise days, but now I’m home and about to hit the treadmill and weights for a nighttime workout session.
Usually I find ways to do way more exercise on holidays. I did do some pushups and leg dips one day, but if I’m honest, I had the time to do that or other body weight workouts on more of the days than I did… I just didn’t do it.
This isn’t me beating myself up for taking most of the week off. Rather it’s recognition that it can be easy to let things slide if I don’t pay attention. At home, my routines make things easy. I wake up, I get a workout done. It’s that simple. On holidays I need to either: build in a routine or make a conscious effort to workout. Or if it’s a week or less, give myself permission to have an easy week.
That said, I’m back home and my basement gym is calling me.
I’m visiting my sister (and mom is visiting too). It’s great to be together with family, and to be somewhere where a morning walk doesn’t involve rain gear. My wife and I are continuing our tradition of going for morning walks while on holidays. I love that this little vista is just minutes away from my sister’s house.
Holidays can be hard to maintain fitness habits, and I likely won’t be visiting any gyms while here, so these morning walks are going to be a good balance to offset my sister’s awesome cooking and restaurant meals. They are a great way to start the day with something physical, and with some pretty nice views too!
I’m still eating turkey. We definitely didn’t need a bird as big as the one we got. We won’t get through all the leftovers we have from Christmas. But I have to say that I do love leftovers.
To me the best lunch I can have at work is yesterday’s dinner. I’ll pass on sandwiches, and skip the fast food, give me the meal I had last night.
That said, I’m just about turkey’ed out. One more day to enjoy my mostly meat diet and it’s on to new meals… and new leftovers.
It’s Christmas Eve and I had some of the best parking and lineup karma I’ve ever had. Five stops and in every case the hunt for a rare open parking stall was almost instantaneous. The stores were busy but in the 3 places that we purchased items, we never waited for more than a couple people in front of us.
The lineup karma didn’t seem to be working at one location where we stepped into a very long line. Then we heard an employee, “Lanr 7 is open, lane 9, lane 3… he just kept going and we basically didn’t pause, moving constantly forward until we were in a lane with a person getting their last 3 items scanned. This was the same lineup we couldn’t get past to walk in the store, that didn’t seem to be moving at all, which made us question if we even wanted to bother shopping at this busy grocery store.
I’m back home and Spanish rice is in the oven. Next is my grandmother’s dish-baked stuffing that doesn’t get stuffed in the turkey. That’s two items that will only need reheating tomorrow, giving me time for all the other cooking to be done on feast day.
Seems the biggest lineup I’ll have to wait for all day is for space in the oven:)
Wishing all happy holidays… as well as good parking & lineup karma!
Habit versus motivation: habits win.
I am lazing around on holiday. There’s nothing outwardly wrong with that, if only I could feel better about it. Yesterday my wife and I did a walk up a big hill in 33° weather (91° for my Fahrenheit friends). It was hard, but rewarding. I was impressed with my wife who had us jogging down the hill, when I would have chosen to walk.
Today it feels hotter, but I procrastinated all morning and now I still haven’t worked out yet and it’s mid afternoon. I have no idea what I’m going to do for a workout, but I know I’m going to work out… it’s just that my motivation in this heat is very low. Our tent is a steam room, too hot to stay in, and I’m sticking to the chair, sweaty, as I write this in the shade.
I have no problem working out regularly at home, it’s a habit. I wake up, start my morning routine, and before going to work I’ve worked out, meditated, and written my blog post. Meanwhile I’ve been here 3 nights, missed one workout, and didn’t blog or meditate until after 9pm 2-out-of-3 nights so far.
It’s simple: Habits are easy, motivation is hard.
I’ll need to figure out some new routines because I’m spending a good part of my holiday thinking about and avoiding things I usually get done before 7am. As for right now, I’m going to do a meditation and push myself to complete a workout despite the heat. I want it to hurt today, to motivate me to not wait until this time tomorrow. In the world of motivation I’ve learned that I prefer the stick to the carrot… the avoidance of pain rather than the promise of reward.
With good habits, I can just avoid the need for motivation altogether.
It wasn’t a a question, but rather a statement, “You’ve made good time.”
We were on our way to holiday in Kelowna and our youngest daughter was spying on us. Well, not really spying, that suggests something clandestine and this was fully consensual. We share our locations with each other on our phones.
I think my daughter uses it on my wife and I more routinely than we do on her, and that’s perfectly ok with me. I tend to use it when I’m headed to bed and she’s not home yet, and sometimes when I’m the first one home from work and wondering where everyone else is?
I’ll sometime get texts from my daughter that say, “You’re still at work?”, and I know that again is more of a statement than a question… she checked my location before asking. Then the conversation moves to dinner plans or evening plans, and maybe even a request for a drive so that she doesn’t have to take her car somewhere that she may have drinks. Again this is perfectly fine with me.
I can see how this tool can be weaponized by a controlling parent or spouse, but in the hands of mutually respectful people it is really handy. It allows us to connect and feel connected, even when we are headed on holidays. And it changes the conversation from ‘Where are you?’ to the follow up questions that matter more.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you go?
If it were just up to me, and I got to choose (because I’m not sure my wife would agree), then these are the places I’d consider:
Barcelona: I don’t speak Spanish, and languages are not easy for me, but I loved the ‘livability’ of this city. It’s made for pedestrians, not cars, and I loved how the outdoor spaces were extensions of the indoor spaces. I was there in the winter and believe that if I went to visit in the summer I’d never want to leave.
The Caribbean: My Bajan roots run deep, and I’d love to live on an island. That said, I wonder if it would be too ‘small town’ for me? I haven’t spend much time there in the latter part of my life, and while there is a romanticized sense of appeal, I’m not convinced I’d want to live in the Caribbean as much as I’d like to visit more frequently.
Costa Rica: A favourite family holiday destination. Maybe that’s the appeal. Like the Caribbean, I don’t know if this is more of a holiday destination or a retirement destination, but everything about my trip there tells me that I want to spend more time there in the future.
Thailand: The people are so nice, and the country is beautiful. I enjoyed the Philippines as well, but the Philippines felt more like a holiday destination. Having lived in China, I don’t know if I’d go back there to live, although there are many more destinations in China to visit, yet Thailand has a feel more like ‘home’.
Australia: I’ve never been, but everything I hear about this wonderful country tells me that I could grow roots there.
Places I still want to explore: These aren’t places I necessarily want to live because I don’t know what I don’t know about them, but I really want to visit Italy, Portugal, Croatia and other Balkan countries, and Taiwan. There are also so many more places in the world that I want to visit: Countries in South America and Africa, India, Iceland, and many European countries are all on my wish list, but these again are holiday destinations for me until I actually visit them and can make a more informed decision.
I don’t know if any of these appeal to my wife, and the reality is that unless one or both of our daughters leave BC, Canada, it’s likely this will remain my wife and I’s home location. Still it’s nice to dream about possible places to live, and right now these are the places that have the most appeal to me… maybe I’ll revisit this in a few years, and if not a final destination, perhaps these can be long-term visit locations for my wife and I during retirement.
Where would you want to live? And why?
It’s the last day of the winter break. Tomorrow everyone heads back to school. I always find the last couple days before heading back a bit of a reset. The rush of the holidays is over, and my willingness to start something new is extremely low. In the last couple days I’ve watched more television with my wife than I have the rest of the 2 weeks of the break.
That said, I’m not begrudging the return to work. I’m excited about starting up again. I’m looking forward to seeing students in the building and hearing about their holidays. I’m already thinking about things I want to accomplish this term.
Part of me would love to have another week off, and part of me can’t wait to get back to a regular schedule. It’s a mixed feeling and one that sits heaviest on me on the day before I head back. I don’t always know how to balance the different emotions I feel on this day. I kind of just drift through the day, wondering if I should spend time catching up on things like email, or doing something… anything… that says ‘you are still on holidays – enjoy!’
Inevitably, I end up doing ‘not enough’ of either. In actuality, that’s not true, but that’s the emotional rollercoaster I go through every last day of an extended break.
