.. is a sign of weekend spent well.
Started yesterday with the year’s best time at the parkrun. Only by 2 secs, but on a very windy day.
Then walked the boys, fixed the bathroom door, almost fixed the shower holder, did a bit of weeding, and played with the boy in the backyard.
Ended the day totally knackered, with almost 18000 steps, and an aching ankle. Happy but hurt.
I’m at the end of second phase of active development for Todo.txt for Android. All core functionality works sufficiently well for my own use. Dark mode is half baked, so will now be moved to the backlog for the next phase, whenever that happens.
Next few weeks may see small updates to the Chrome extensions—bug fixes and minor tweaks based on user feedback over the last month and a half.
Next up is starting a new project, or finding a new role. Either way, it’ll be a time of flux and vulnerability. Tread kindly, por favor!
After neglecting the garden for 5+ years, I finally started getting my hands dirty this year. It’s been a surprising delight. The flowers are blooming. No plants have died yet. And the weeds are more under control than any time last year. All this for a couple of weekends’ work, and 5-10 mins every morning or evening.
I am really enjoying the work in the garden—probably too much according to R. There must be some truth in what Cal Newport said—creating physical things with our own hands.
I’ve been running well. I really like my current running form, and the times have been reflecting the improvement. I ran my Park Run PB a couple of weeks ago at Woking—22:42. I have been off running so far this week due to an ankle injury picked up on Saturday (thankfully, after I’d completed my 14 mile run). Looking forward to testing the ankle again with a short run later today.
I’m loving reading ‘Turn the ship around’ by David Marquet. It’s one of those books that is best read in small bits, munched over for a while, then continued. The last book in this category was Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking fast and slow’. They’ll both stay in my forever library, with frequent references to notes and books.
I’m also reading Messy by Tim Harford. This is my active reading book, and will probably be finished tomorrow. It’s an interesting journey of rediscovery. I used to be atypical messy—thriving only in mess and chaos. Working independently forced me to learn discipline and to streamline my life processes. Now I am rediscovering the value of messiness. It’s a brilliant brain tickler for me—harmonising my tidy, streamlined life with a bit of messiness to add some anti-fragility.
The third book I’m currently reading is Sanjaya Baru’s ‘The accidental prime minister’. It’s hard reading, specially because I like the subject. The author covers too much of himself relative to the subject (the prime minister). It also, like bits of ‘Up in the air’, way too frequently delves into explanations and bureaucratic minutae. R tells me it gets better later, so I’m ploughing on.
I had a mild headache and bad tinnitus when I slept last night.
I woke up with a headache, and the tinnitus returned soon after. So I skipped the morning work session, and went back to sleep. Woke up late, then spent another few hours reading in bed. The headache had only become a bit worse.
Now, finally, I’ve managed to get rid of the headache.
How?
Simple remedy, and one with no negative side effects (other than her cursing me for stealing her dessert stash).
Started the day with Parkrun. 24:51 of running, and about just as long chatting with the regulars. In fact spent first lap of the run chatting too – Anne’s dad, Rich from Phoenix, Andy, and Val. Never really bothered to run hard, but ended up with a decent time nonetheless. All the chatting in the first half meant that I had a negative split 🙂
It was a near perfect start to the weekend – a good run, lots of friendly faces, sunshine, and lots and lots of lovely, friendly dogs.
Back home, spent two hours reading the book in the conservatory. It was a beautiful morning with lots of sun, but often interspersed with dark clouds and chilly wind.
After lunch, made myself a coffee, and called home. It turned into an almost hour long video call with parents. It was nice to see them both. It was even better to end such a long call without getting into a fight over anything 😅
Had planned to call a friend too, but the long call home drained all my calling energy.
So I started with the long planned cleaning of the utility room. I expected it to be a long slog. 7 hours of slogging later, I’m only about ⅔rd done. I didn’t expect it to be that long slog!
At least the output is looking good.
While I was cleaning, Soham came over to spend some time while playing a video game and chatting.
I’d also brought Dudley over for the evening. He wasn’t happy though that I was cleaning, and not spending time with him.
After the long cleaning, took a long, hot shower, had dinner, and now watching MOTD.
I’m knackered, and very sleepy. Not broken, yet. Might have to cancel tomorrow’s bike ride plan though
It was a very good day. Hope tomorrow is more of the same.
It’s noon.
I have done 2.5 hours of deep, productive work.
I have run 5 miles.
I have showered, and had lunch.
I have spent half an hour hugging the boy on the sofa.
I am back at the work table for the second session.
It’s just noon.
This is turning out to be a good day. Yesterday was a good day too. Perhaps the March sadness really is behind me :)
My PB at Guildford Parkrun is 23:12, and my best ranking is 77.
My current time at Guildford Parkrun is 25 mins (5:00 min/km), and ranking is near 120.
To rank in the top 50, I would need to achieve a time of 22 mins or lower. This would require running at an average pace of 4:24 min/km.
Losing 3 mins will not be easy. It’s a good target – challenging but not impossible.
Continue reading Target for 2019 – Rank within top 50 at Guildford Parkrun
I wasn’t in a very chatty mood while volunteering at the park run this weekend. So, instead, I stood in a corner and took some photos on my phone. Here’s some of them…
And, below the fold, a few gifs…
I recently retired a pair of shoes from service (last-but-one in the photos above), and they’ve been lying next to the bin for a few weeks now. When R enquired how do we dispose them off – waste or recycling – I didn’t know.
I don’t know, because I have not thrown away any1 shoes in the 5+ years that we’ve been living in this house. The last shoe I remember throwing away was a pair of generic sports trainers that I disposed off after the sole fell off. That was in 2012.
It hit me – I may be a shoe hoarder. Confronted by this realisation, I went around the house taking photos of all the shoes that may be past their dispose-off date. Here’s that list, with some notes: Continue reading Facing the reality: I may be a shoe hoarder!
