TGIF

Fri-yay!

The high of my week: I passed by one of the ride share electric scooters and on a whim I decided to rent it. Haha it was fun, exhilarating and scary at the same time.

The low of my week: I've not been sleeping too well this week, which led me to dozing on the sofa and missing my figure skating class - oops!

The book I am reading: Murder in an English Village

The best workout of the week: Ballet for sure - it's hard enough trying to maintain proper posture when standing still but this week we were galloping across the floor!

The best money I spent: Signing up for Ballet course 2 :)

//Image from NZBallet

My plans for the weekend: I'll need to do a catch-up lesson over the weekend to make up for the figure skating lesson I missed.  Other than that, no real plans yippee!

Buying a New Car - it's electric!

Kane has been researching electric vehicles for a very long time now. As a result, I have become quite familiar with various video bloggers (and their cats, - Hi Jensen!) who have been building their own EVs or testing out ones already coming to market.

I was very interested when Kane told me about the Hyundai Kona with its impressive 400km+ range. I got to test drive one at an EV expo and I was sold. At the weekend we went to visit the show room and we put in our order. I couldn't be more excited!

In some countries, like Norway, the waiting list is 2 years!  I was assured it wouldn't be that long, but it could be anywhere between 6 weeks and 6 months.  The dealer gave us a loan of the car overnight, so between 4.30pm on Saturday and 10am on Sunday we got feel like EV owners and get a taste for what's to come.

We headed for the motorway to test out just what this thing can do.  I put some pressure on the pedal and was immediately pressed back into my seat as it took off. Holy cow it's powerful! 

I tested the 3 different drive modes - drive, sport and eco.  Drive was just the normal mode. Eco makes the car feel heavier, changes the dash display to give more stats on how much energy you are saving and maximizes the regenerative braking.  I think that I will use this for city and suburban driving.  Sport mode made the car feel much lighter and reponsive, the slightest touch and the car was ready to go, turn or whatever was asked of it and I was a bit scared of it's power.  I can't imagine ever really needing to use this mode as the normal drive mode was is responsive enough for me.  Jetting away from the traffic lights was plenty fast in normal drive mode!

I also tested out the 3 levels of regenerative braking and using the stearing wheel paddles to increase the regenerative braking to bring the car to a stop.  I try to be a safe and economical driver when slowing down in traffic or coming to a stop and using the paddles fit with my way of driving and I can put energy back into the battery braking in this way.

There were heaps of other modern features that my 8 year old car doesn't have so I'm excited to have Apple Car Play and automatic lights and rain sensing windscreen wipers!

The only downside is that I have to wait but I'm super hopeful that I'll have it before my sister and her husband comes to visit so that there will be enough space to pick them AND their luggage up from the airport!

Lessons from Squat Challenge

Back in September, after I had returned from holiday, I felt the need to do something that would encourage me to be more active.  Everything seemed like such a massive effort until I stopped with the All-or-Nothing thinking that I'm so prone to doing and came up with my own little squat challenge.  The next day I got out of bed and did one squat.  Just the one. 

I can't express how silly I felt doing just one squat.  It needed to be bigger, more perfect somehow? Or maybe a nice round number like 10 or 500.  There are lots of people out there that do heaps of squats every day.  I gently reminded myself that my purpose was to start small, get rid of the perfectionism and the go big or go home attitude that's stopping me from doing anything.

//Image from Runtastic: How to Squat

The next day I did 2, then 3, and so on.  I didn't miss a single day and increased by one every day.  The first couple of weeks went by no problems and I focused on quality.  By the third week I was finding that I was starting to breath heavier towards the end of the set.  Sometimes I found myself pausing before completing the set but the next day or so I was going longer without needing to pause.

I had started this challenge without an end point and was starting to get bored.  I added in more things like sit-ups and press-ups to shake it up a bit but I wasn't feeling it. 

After 6 weeks I decided to call it a day.  I felt good about what I had achieved and I was being more active in my everyday life again.  At the time, I wasn't seeing or feeling any benefits from the squats but then I noticed that I felt stronger when doing crossovers in figure skating.

Now I'm thinking about other things that I can start small with and build up over a 6 week period.  I might even do this same squat challenge again but add in a weight. Or do single leg lunges (haha no).

My Favourite Apps

//Nokia 1610 from Wikipedia

I remember getting my first mobile phone in 1997 and it was a giant Nokia brick-of-a-thing.  Calls were expensive so it was a strictly an "emergencies only" phone.

Times may have changed but using my phone for calls is still the least used function!  Here are my top 5 apps.

1. Google Maps

//Google Maps Icon

I would be lost without this app - quite literally probably haha!  Not only do I use it in the car for navigation, I use it to find out how far away things are, to plan running or walking routes, to find out how long it will take to get from A to B and compare against walking, cycling and public transport, and to see where the nearest shop/park/scenic path is in the area I'm in.  The street view is really useful for checking what a house or building looks like so that I'll recognise it when I get there and also to look around for parking or somewhere to chain up a bike.

Recently when I was out walking in an area I hadn't been in before I needed to find the nearest public toilet.  Then, because I'd had to deviate from my intended route, I needed to find a way to get back by a certain time.

Only earlier this year when I was in China where Google is blocked, did I realise how much I rely on this app! (thank goodness for VPNs)

2. Spotify

//Spotify Icon

I love Spotify and I usually have one of the genre playlists streaming when I'm in my home office but more often I'm listening on the move - either via headphones getting some exercise, or blasting out my car speakers on my way to ballet.

3. Headspace

//Headspace Icon

I confess I don't use Headspace as much as I should.  I got into a groove of meditating every day but a change of schedule lost me the time I had carved out and instead of adapting I just stopped.  However, I've recently realised that it is better that I do a short session than no session at all and I easily have time for that.

I love the look and feel of the app.  The animations that explain things are cute and fun and really help.  There are groups of meditations on particular subjects, they call them Packs, and they range from 10 to 30 days.  There are also individual subjects as well as the daily ones, and you can pick how long you want to meditate for - from 3 -20 minutes.

After I finished all the Basics packs I moved on to the Everyday Headspace, which is the daily sessions (not a pack) I've also done some of the individual sessions like the Fear of Flying one and the Walking in Nature.

4. Camera

//Camera Icon

The last digital camera I bought was in 2005.  I'm actually fairly terrible at remembering to take photos when I'm with other people and thats why my photos are of cats, nature and food.  One of the things I love most about blogging is that it reminds me to take more photos, I really appreciate being able to look back over them and I love the fact that I always have a digital camera available to me on my phone.

A worthy mention is Framatic Pro because I use this to organise my pictures into a frame for putting on my blog.

5. Nike Run Club and Training

//NTC and NRC Icons

Ok, I'm cheating by grouping these two apps together!

Back in the day I had the Nike+ shoe sensor and iPod app and it was awesome to be able to track my runs and I'd post them to my blog and facebook.  I've stuck with Nike ever since and its my preferred running app.  When they released NTC I was quick to get on board since it's like having a personal trainer in your pocket.  They've revamped the app since then, it's not just geared towards women and all the workouts are available rather than some only being available as rewards.  I particularly like the yoga workouts.  They integrate with each other if you choose to do one of their training plans although I've never properly used this feature.

Home Office Space - Before and After

I am so lucky to have a home office space in my house.  For a while we were putting up with the 70's decor but then I decided to claim to the space and Kane and I got stuck in to decorating and I realised I never did share the before and after pictures.

Before:

When I was stripping the wall paper off the walls I had a really bad cold.  I had to rest often because my body hurt but using the wall paper steamer did great things for my stuffed up sinuses!

I had to rope in Kane's help for doing some of the high painting and once it was all finished then we put up the new roman blind and light fixtures.  I had great fun spray painting the filing cabinet, but I think I might have spent more on spray paint than I did buying the second-hand cabinet in the first place!

I got a nice new monitor for my birthday and had great fun picking out the rest of the functional and not-so-functional decor.

After:

I like making myself a nice hot drink, lighting my scented candle, streaming a chill spotify playlist and cosying into my space to get stuff done!

October: Meals, Miles, Books and Looks

It's been a while since I did one of these and I'm afraid the content is a little lean, but I do like looking back on these to get meal ideas and knowing that I'll be posting about these things helps motivate me.

Meals

1. I looked back on previous spring meals and I realised its been a while since I made the traditional new potatoes tossed in butter and oats with asparagus and fish in a dill sauce - perfect welcome to spring!

2. Not one of my meals, but I saw these fun Hallowe'en capsicums at the supermarket haha!

//Spring Meals

3. Omelette with mushrooms and spinach

4. Another spring classic, pan seared scallops with grapefruit and avocado salad 

Miles: 39.56 km (walking)

I've been making an effort this month to gently get more active and I've been trying to get in a walk most lunchtimes.  I'm actually surprised at my monthly distance because it never seems to be much at the time but it sure does add up.  This month I'm going to attempt a couple of runs :)

//Photos from my lunchtime walks

Books:

I finished 4 books this month and I've got 5 books to go to make my Goodreads reading challenge.  My favourite book was Beartown by Fredrik Backman.

//Images from Goodreads

1. Beartown by Fredrik Backman  2. Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente  3. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson  4. Lagom by Linnea Dunne

//Images from Goodreads

Looks:

I've got one look to share this month.  I was quite pleased with myself because I had actually made a bit of an effort and wore jewellery and heels!  And the sun was shining so I got to break out the short sleeves.

//Necklace and Heels!

TGIF

What? it's only day 2 of NaBloPoMo and I'm already dialling it in?  Nah, I'm pacing myself and welcoming back the TGIF posts :)

The high of my week: Decorating for Hallowe'en while dancing around to Monster Mash haha!

The low of my week: Tuesday's existential crisis - I'm fairly sure I'm having a mid-life crisis but the good news is that I read it only lasts 3 -5 years :/

The book I am reading: Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott

The best workout of the week: Ballet - who knew standing still was such hard work?!

The best money I spent: Subway - buy one get one free AND they donate one.

My plans for the weekend: There's a fireworks display on Saturday night and the Scandinavian Christmas Market on Sunday that I plan to go to.