Summer is terrible, especially when you’re an adult and you don’t have the luxury of sleeping the day away and then doing nothing like you did when you were a child.
I tend to like my mom’s idea of treating the “heat index of 100+” days as basically like a day with a blizzard — you just do stuff indoors because the weather’s not fit for doing thing outside. And I like being outside. I live right near a park and walking or biking through the woods is tremendous for my mental health. But when the weather doesn’t cooperate, well …
(I do need to find a fitness class that works for me. Neither Pilates nor barre classes seemed quite right and while I love yoga, I want something else. Maybe that boxing gym is what I want …)
But I think a lot of us are taking this summer to work on ourselves, whatever shape that takes. I think this is a good thing. This website is a part of that.
My usual daily post-work wind-down involves my weighted blanket (mine’s just 15 pounds but that works for me) and then playing Tap Color (Play Store link — there is an Apple version). “Playing” may be too strong of a word for that — it’s fairly mindless and if you pay a few dollars for unlimited hints, there’s really no challenge involved. But it’s satisfying and helps move my mind into a calmer place.
I was seeking another craft to do (I love cross stitch and I still have one I’m working on but that does feel much more like a winter thing) and somehow that turned into buying a midi controller so I could work on learning to read music (again), learning to play a few things and write my own. I know how to play guitar — at least in that I know the basics and all — but pianos/keys just always made more sense to me when it comes to reading sheet music. It came with a free 3-month subscription to Skoove which I may not love, but it’s free and does it job.
I’ve also started Tim Clare’s Couch to 80k Boot Camp for writing. I don’t know if I’ll do six days a week, but I like that the exercises are mostly short and I like his attitude. I used to write so much and it was fun. I miss it. I’m looking for a way to get back to it.
I’m also trying to read more and listen to more music, but that’s also a work in progress. There are only so many hours in the day (but I am trying to make the most of the ones I have).
I’ll keep updating on my progress with these things.
(Photo from this Monday’s Fort Reno, when the weather was actually tolerable. That was probably the last day for a while.)