The last few nights I’ve found myself getting to bed, and realising yet another day has gone by. It feels like from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to bed, things just zoom by.
I only pause when it’s time to go to sleep, and really, I’m only pausing because I have to. I want to keep doing things, and getting stuff done, and sometimes sleep just feels like a waste of time.
No points for guessing that I had bad sleep this week because I kept going to bed late, whoops.
New mission for next week: slow down, pay attention, and appreciate what time I have.
Anyway, here’s what happened in the last blink-and-you’ll-miss-it week.
1: Still “Running down under”
I renewed my subscription to Run the World this week, a virtual run around Australia. 14,080 km in total. I signed up in 2020 when I was doing another team event with friends, and was clocking up some good miles every week.
Then, 2023 happened: I blew out my knee, and the rest is history. Er, history in the sense that I’m now only allowed to walk.
My progress on the map has slowed dramatically, but I refuse to quit.
Right now, my completion date is estimated to be on the 10th of June, 2036 (!!!). I clearly still have a long, long way to go. But I love the extra motivation, and the fun singlets and medals every year don’t hurt either.
2: Work breaks and time tracking
One of my goals this year is to start taking work breaks, meaning getting up every 40 mins and stretching a bit. Last week I renewed my efforts, but at the same time, decided to time-track my life for a few reasons:
- I was inspired by a post from Melissa over at The Brighton Jotter. I’m such a stats lover, and I was instantly drawn to this idea.
- My friends and coworkers always joke about if I ever sleep, given how much stuff I’m always working on.
- The census this year (mandatory Australian survey) asked a question that triggered a lot of people, wondering how much “unpaid domestic work” they do. I already know my husband does a lot; he obsessively mows the lawn every 2-3 days, but it got me wondering about myself. Part of me wondered if I’m selfish and have hobbies at the top.
Well, the results are in.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, sleep and work take up most of my time.
However, there were a few things I didn’t expect.
- Housework clocked in third at 7.5 hours. I was on top of it that week (probably because I was aware of it by time tracking), but combine that with life admin, and that’s nearly 14 hours of “unpaid domestic time”. Life admin was things like filling out forms, doing some errands (chemist run, etc), and RSVPing to events.
- Self-care is only so high because I had a haircut on the Saturday, which is about 3.5 hours long. Then you add showering, brushing teeth, etc, and it climbs pretty quickly.
- Morning routine was stuff like waking up and going to the loo, getting my son his breakfast every day, packing his school bag, dropping him at school, etc. The walk there and back is roughly 25mins. It should be much less, but he dawdles and talks nonstop.
- Planner worked out to be nearly 4 hours over the week. Yikes! I’m sure if I didn’t decorate it every day it would be much less, but I really do love starting the day with that little bit of creativity.
On the other side, I really appreciated some of the stuff down the bottom. Look at how low my driving was! If I had recorded this for one more day, it would have been higher. We drove to Noosa to hike the headlands, and that’s a 40-45 min drive each way. But it just made me appreciate how little time I spend in the car. Work from home for the win!
Also, I’m not really impressed with my workouts, whoops! I completely neglected my workouts and had to cram in a few sessions this week to make sure I got my monthly iFit badge (I did it).
It was a pretty interesting exercise in the end. And after a week of hitting the play button, this week it felt weird not to be tracking time. And I immediately fell off the wagon of taking breaks. Back to it next week.
3: New haircut
Look who got a snazzy new haircut, and now can’t replicate it to save her life?
THIS GIRL.
I’ve sent my hairdresser some “what is this called” and “how do I do it again?” SOS messages. She sent me links to a bunch of tutorials, so at some point I’ll give it another crack.
I tried blow-drying my hair today while not looking (I was reading something), and I ended up looking like a blonde Hagrid. So, not a success just yet.
And this is why I have a hair straightener.
4: I built a bookstore
Remember last week’s mini market craft kit build?
Well, this week I built a bookstore!
As much as I love it, I’m bummed there was a misprint on some of the pieces. If you look at the bookshelf on the back left, a couple of the boxes aren’t the right patterns. They’re meant to be more books, but those are printed in the middle of some other pieces. And the top of the bookshelf looks like it was something else as well. I daresay someone just fed the timber into the printer facing the wrong way.
Not to worry, it was a lot of fun anyway, and it’s still super cute. Maybe in the future I might try painting them a solid colour and stick some stickers on top?
For now, it’s cute enough sitting on the shelf.
5: Busy times ahead
This week has been crazy busy, and it seems like I’m in for a very busy month ahead. Or months.
We have something booked in every weekend now until the end of October.
Yikes.
And immediately upon realising that, I put an event in for that day, called :
- “DO NOTHING DAY. Book something in at your own risk. Kel will kill you.”
To test out if the message was clear, I just messaged my husband asking what we’re doing on that date.
….
*sigh. I guess this is where I now wait impatiently for him to reply, only to find he’s not looking at his phone. Such a party pooper sometimes.
Anyway, sounds like I’m really going to have to prioritise some mid-week down nights. This week I was so mentally cooked from work that I scrapped all my plans and sat in the bath for the night. Best decision ever. But I’ve got a long to-do list, and not much time to get it done.
So, time to hit publish on this post, go to bed, and get some sleep. This weekend we’re celebrating Father’s Day, getting our caravan back, going to the markets, attending a kid’s birthday party for one of my son’s mates, and probably a half dozen other things that I haven’t remembered.
So much for that slowing down thing that I was talking about.
P.S. I had to ask my husband to check his phone, and when he finally looked at the calendar, he laughed and then asked what we have on that day. NOTHING. That’s the whole point!
Do you have to schedule ‘nothing’ into your calendar, or is switching off something you can actually do without a threat attached?
