I am very glad that it’s Friday! Work and studying have combined in a fairly tiring way this week. I’m also very glad that January is quiet in terms of weekends, as I’m looking forward to dozing and hibernating a bit after parkrun volunteering tomorrow.
Because I’m very busy at the moment there are a few things I’ll need to do during the day tomorrow after I’m home, but I’m planning a really quiet day on Sunday!
(I’ll get back to the ice cream posts… sometime soon.)
I realised over Christmas that the first couple of months of 2022 were going to be a bit hectic with all the stuff I needed to do. As such, post-holiday I’ve got back into a strict weekday routine – running/housework/work/studying/life admin/downtime – with strict hours set for each so that nothing gets neglected. It feels a bit ‘go go go’ and so I’m sort of worried I’ll end up letting things slide (as usually happens), but I just have to keep remembering that it’s only for a couple of months. I’ll try and have a break after TechUP ends in February.
The strange thing I’ve found about this Christmas holiday is that, after a year of nonstop rushing and deadlines, having time to myself is making me slightly anxious because I’m being a perfectionist about enjoying it efficiently! I’m trying to relax a bit more and just go with the flow of what I want to do. Yesterday evening I went back to my Python coding practice, even though that’s technically ‘work’ as it’s part of my TechUp course, because that was what I felt like doing. I’m also planning to make a bit more time for myself in January and February, as I’ll be very busy with finishing the course and I’ll need some relaxing downtime to balance it out.
It’s been a really productive week! Lots of work and game creation done and another interesting TechUp module finished. I also have a giant pile of parcels from various postal services that need to be opened and wrapped in Christmas paper this weekend!
Next week, if all goes well, I will be taking a bit of downtime. I’m well caught up with work and studying and will be blitzing as much housework and Christmas admin as possible over the weekend. My game is also now drafted and in the testing process, meaning I just need to finish tweaking and finessing it before the jam deadline on Sunday evening.
The main reason I’m going to be trying for a quiet week is that December is going to be non-stop. Mostly in a lovely way (proper Christmas celebrations with family etc.), but I get a bit unsettled when lots of non-routine things are happening, so it’d be good to have some mental recharge time beforehand.
Geth and I have both had head colds this week. I shook it off fairly quickly, but Geth has been feeling fairly rough and has decided on a strictly-indoors weekend in order to try and shake it off before Monday. This means that if I’m parkrunning tomorrow, I’m doing it by myself, and I still can’t decide where I want to go. Might end up making a very last-minute decision!
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Duran Duran and Chai – ‘More Joy’
Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’
Soft Cell – ‘Sex Dwarf’
Sunday
Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’
Soft Cell – ‘Bedsitter’
Duran Duran and Tove Lo – ‘Give It All Up’
Irene Cara – ‘Fame’
Monday
Roger Miller – ‘King Of The Road’
Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’
Duran Duran and Tove Lo – ‘Give It All Up’
Tuesday
Roger Miller – ‘King Of The Road’
Soft Cell – ‘Sex Dwarf’
Wednesday
Chris Rea – ‘Driving Home For Christmas’
Duran Duran – ‘Anniversary’
Thursday
Arcadia – ‘Lady Ice’
Traditional – ‘Deck The Halls’
Friday
Dr Hook – ‘When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman’*
*AWFUL. Get out of my head!
A fairly routine week ahead in the sense that I’m not going out anywhere, but as ever there’s a lot to do. I’m hoping to get it all done on schedule so that I can have a bit of downtime the week after.
Geth and I got back from Leeds this morning after a great gig last night (review to follow… eventually) and are having a quiet evening in before the weekday chaos begins again.
Being in a town centre felt slightly odd yesterday evening… Christmas is apparently suddenly here! (Or it is in commercial areas, anyway.)
It’s Shouldless Sunday again and this flying post is brought to you by the final cake from last Sunday‘s post-race lunch!
It’s the weekend but it’s going to be a pretty busy one! Geth and I are volunteering at parkrun tomorrow morning, then I’ll be following the opening day sessions for my course tomorrow afternoon, and then we’ve got the North Tyneside 10k on Sunday. Fairly full-on week next week too with starting the course modules, so I expect I’ll be scheduling another Shouldless Sunday next weekend in order to relax!
I’ve been able to get a good chunk of work done on my new game this week as well, which has been great. Coding for that should be done by the middle of next week and then I can get started on the bells and whistles. I need to fit it in with coursework and day job work, but it’s all going really well so far, and I feel like I’ve got a good planned balance for the next couple of weeks. Hallowe’en will be a really great celebration of getting it done… I hope!
Speaking of which, the decorations may be coming out this weekend. I loved having them up for two weeks last year and I think that will become the norm…
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Sacre – ‘The London Marathon’
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’*
Mark Knopfler – ‘Local Hero’
VNV Nation – ‘Fearless’
Avicii and Aloe Blacc – ‘Wake Me Up’
Sunday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’
Monday
Avicii and Aloe Blacc – ‘Wake Me Up’
Howard Jones – ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’
Tuesday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’
Hans Zimmer – ‘He’s A Pirate’
Wednesday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’
Yuzo Koshiro – ‘Battlefield: Storm’
Mark Knopfler – ‘Local Hero’
Thursday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’
Bill Withers – ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’
Lady Gaga and Beyoncé – ‘Telephone’
Friday
Robert Burns – ‘Auld Lang Syne’
Travis – ‘Driftwood’
Meat Loaf – ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’
Rod Stewart – ‘Maggie May’
Bill Withers – ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’
*Judi Love and Graziano Di Prima danced to this on Strictly a couple of weeks ago and I have not been able to get it out of my head since 😬 It takes me right back to dancing in dodgy clubs in my late teens.
It took a bit of preparation, but I feel so much better for having my day off to play videogames yesterday. I’m going to do that at least once a month from now on.
It’s a busier week ahead for me now, but I’m excited to get on with some game creation (finally). It’s been getting away from me all summer and I need to make it more of a priority.
Hopefully I’ll squeeze in a few dribs and drabs of videogaming too!
A while ago, I came across the concept of ‘Shouldless Sunday’ – a scheduled day where there’s nothing on the to-do list at all. This post at Apartment Therapy explains the idea, though most of the things it suggests (crafting, cooking etc.) would not be things I would choose to do with such a day – those are most definitely things that go on the to-do list in my world!
My first reaction was that such a thing would be impossible for my life as it is now. I manage the things that are important to me (running, blogging, cleaning etc.) by doing a tiny bit of work on them every day – I find that if I break a daily habit or streak, the whole thing falls by the wayside (for instance, in the form of the six-week winter running slumps I used to have every winter before I started my daily run streak). While these important things are enjoyable hobbies, they require a fair amount of productivity, and so there’s always an extent to which they will feel like a chore sometimes. Nevertheless, I keep up my habits, because it’s the end result (being able to run a marathon, having a solid portfolio of blog posts, keeping a clean house etc.) that makes it all worth it.
However, I’ve not been able to get the idea of a completely free day out of my head. I have very nostalgic memories of being twenty, on summer break from university with no commitments whatsoever, and just rolling out of bed whenever I woke up, playing videogames all day long, and going back to bed when I was finally too tired to keep playing my game (i.e. usually about 5am). I dream of a day like that again – just one day (though I don’t think I’d be awake till 5am nowadays). As such, I’ve been having a think about how I could fit it in and still maintain my streaks. The weekend after the London Marathon seemed like a perfect time to try it out, given that I wanted a quiet weekend anyway!
The plan is this: first, minimise my daily list down to the absolute essentials – which, if pre-prepared, will take less than an hour, including a short streak saver mile run. I already do this on days that are very busy with work, big races (like last Sunday) or social commitments. Next step: on the Saturday night, stay up a little later than I typically do, and get this short list completed between midnight and 1am (the short run will be on the treadmill). Final step: off to bed, good night’s sleep, and wake up with absolutely nothing on the to-do list for the day. Living the dream!
Other than the midnight hour, I also won’t be turning on my laptop (which is something that I’ve done every day for years and years) or looking at my phone all day on Sunday, because if I do, I will just disappear down a social media rabbithole, which will waste time and cause stress. I’m instead going to disconnect from the world and stick with my videogame consoles. This makes me a bit nervous, because I always make sure to answer work emails promptly, even at the weekend – but it will just have to wait till Monday morning this time round.
This post is going out in the first hour of Sunday morning. I’ll be back online on Monday! Until then, I will be in a different (digital) world somewhere else…