Today’s bout of melonchaly was sponsored by Maachis.
Happens every time! I should’ve known better than listening to Maachis on the walk to town.
Month: December 2018
Believing in the impossible…
The Queen said to Alice, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—Ashley Eckstein, quoting ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in her Morning Routine
My Morning Routine
(Inspired by one of my regular haunts: the ‘My Morning Routine’ blog)
What is your morning routine?
I wake up between 04:45 and 05:15. I do some ankle stretch exercises while lying in the bed. To save myself from checking email, news, or another distraction, I use the ankle stretch time to sync my watch (Fenix 3) with the Garmin app. This shows me how much, and what quality sleep I got.
Then I go downstairs and drink half a tumbler of warm water with half a lime squeezed in. By the time I finish the water, my dog is up and about. We go out to the backyard for his morning rituals. This takes 5-10 mins, depending on whether the moon is still visible (he spends 5 mins barking at it, and getting told off by me).
After we return indoors, he goes off to sleep, and I make my coffee. I make the coffee the slow way. Grind the beans, heat the water, place the wet filter and ground beans in the clever dripper, and then pour over the warm water. I then place the lid on, letting it brew for 4-5 mins. I use this time to walk around, wake up the body, and do some step raises.
Usually, by the time the coffee is ready, I am wide awake – both in the head and in the muscles. I now head upstairs with the coffee and a tumbler of water, ready to start the work day.
I schedule the first 30 mins for coffee and catching up – basically gathering my thoughts, remembering where I left yesterday, and thinking of the top highlights I want to focus on today. I also use this time to lay out my calendar for the day (A sample is in the screenshot attached). I schedule 30 mins for all this, but it rarely takes more than 10 mins.
I then work for ~3 hours, usually from 06:00 to 10:00, with an hour’s break somewhere in between for loo and more ankle & calf exercises. Around 10, I take Tango for a walk followed by some back and core exercises. By 11:30 I am back upstairs working for another 2-3 hours. Continue reading My Morning Routine
Polarising
Some British acquaintances were asking about Indian politics and Narendra Modi. I told them my opinion of him is strongly biased (I abhor him), but I struggled to come up with the correct, unbiased term to describe him.
It’s not controversial, extremist, illiberal or nationalist. Divisive is close, but that’s not it either.
The correct term to describe him, in my opinion, is polarising.
People who know anything about him may not agree on any of those previous terms. However, most people who know anything about him – supporters or opponents** – will agree on this one term: he is polarising.
One up, one down. At least I’m alive.
The Up
Went for my first run since early May. Ran just 5K, but had to take 2 breaks to let the HR come down.
The good bit: Most of the external-focused running muscles worked fine. The ankle whose injury had stopped running felt completely normal. The achilees in the other foot tinged a bit occasionally, but nothing extraordinary. Will ice it tonight.
The ok bit: It’s been just a couple of hours, and my quads (?!) are giving an indication of DOMS already. Could it be because I was lifting my knees while trying to pick up the feet? Or is it just that they’ve not been worked at all since the last spinning class in early August?
The bad bit: HR was high. Way too high for such a short run in cool temperatures. It was a clear indication of how much aerobic fitness I’ve lost in these months. Lots of work to get it back before London.
The Down
When heading down for the run, I turned off the heater in the office. I’d kept it at low for Chewie – who seemed to be feeling a bit cold.
When I returned upstairs 2.5 hours later, the room was boiling. Instead of switching off the low button, I’d turned on the high button – so the electric heater was working at full power for 2.5 hours. The digital temperature gauge read 39ºC :/
My office room is small enough to become uncomfortably warm in 10 mins. After two hours at full power, it was boiling – worse than the worst of summer. The Macbook was so hot that it took nearly 2 mins to show the lock screen!
I’ve been sitting here with the window open for 20 mins, and the temperature still reads 31ºC.
There may be a good amount of damage to the electricity bill.
I’m still alive
Early in the run, the HR reading said 232 bpm! My heart was working, but not that hard. It was just the usual ‘cold air meets HR strap’ f-up.
Later in the run, the reading said 187 bpm, and I could feel the heart struggling to keep pumping. That was when I took my first break.
That was nothing compared to how hard the heart beat when I came upstairs half-an-hour ago and realised what had happened. Glad I wasn’t wearing the HR monitor anymore, or it may have given a reading to give me a stroke!
Anyway, the heart didn’t stop, and I didn’t burn down the house. I’ll call this afternoon a win.
A flat(tening) week…
Hearing therapy session got cancelled – Jen called in sick :(
I really needed this session – we’d made good progress in the previous session, and I was still reeling from Sunday’s mess.
Weight has been trending up dramatically, after three weeks of heading down. Sunday’s gorging at the party, Monday’s cake feast, and yesterday’s gallons of red wine – all contributed. Culprit was clearly a weak will.
Clutter free is stagnating – growth burst is over, and user numbers have been up and down since the US Thanksgiving.
Not enough users are signing up for premium support subscribtions. If the trend continues, I’ll have to cull time allotment to, if not kill entirely, the extensions. 40,000 users aren’t worth anything if even 1% of them don’t think these are worth paying.
Not a good week, so far.
The upside: week’s not over.
— Ever the optimist :)
Noise notes
Yesterday was a bad day for noise exposure and I’m still feeling its impact today – in higher tinnitus and grinding of teeth. The silver lining is that the social event I was dreading went way better than expected, but I did suffer more than usual at the cafe later.
We had a party at friends’ house. 4 families, one sleepy dogs, and some young kids. It was noisy at times. However, I don’t remember being irritated or hurting from noise most of the time. Even when I was with the kids in their room, or when one of them was playing the piano (for me, and really well!), and another trying his hand on drums (badly). I was happy, and a bit drunk. I guess the alcohol dulled my senses, and happiness kept the anxiety levels low despite the noise.
Later I walked to town for my Sunday evening coffee and reading break. The cafe (Nero) had more people than a usual Sunday evening. I found a comfortable seat but with noisy tables around – chatty teenager girls, and louder-than-usual talkative couples. I tried using my earphones, without anything playing, to reduce the sound. It didn’t help. After a while, I was able to ignore the noise and continue with the reading. But I think the noise stress accumulated below the surface. I was stressed out for rest of the evening.
Finally, before sleeping, I was reading (and wildly nodding my head to) this article about noise in restaurants and cafes. The pain from the noise in the cafe, combined with recurring visual (and aural) memories of several such experiences came rushing back. I got a headache, and the ears started hurting again. I could feel, and not stop much, my teeth grinding and anxiety flooding in.
I had to take a paracetamol (for headache), and use a Calm sleep story (Shipping forecast) to help me sleep. They worked.
I have been awake for an hour, trying to work. The tinnitus is louder than usual. The room is awfully quiet too, as expected at 6:30 AM, so that may be a factor. I’m still occasionally grinding my teeth, and stopping myself when I notice myself doing it. Anxiety levels are a bit higher than usual, but better than last night.