Sunday, July 2, 2023

I moved my body: kayaking and a short walk.

It was a glorious summer day so we took our new-ish kayaks out for their 2nd adventure. We live just a few blocks from a little Salmon Bay “beach” access point so we walked our kayaks-in-backpacks down there for a leisurely adventure. The access point is in a marina so the water was calm and easy for launching. The water was mildly choppy but surprisingly not busy considering the weather. Although considering how July 4th is falling this year, the people that own private boats are probably all off on long weekend trips. Or saving themselves for all-day-on-the-water on Tuesday.

We are still very happy with our purchase – they are quick to inflate and deflate, quick to dry, and we haven’t really had any issues getting them to fit back in their packs (especially once we figured out how important it is to fold the seat backs properly. These are the kayaks we bought a few weeks ago at the REI annual sale. They handle a bit differently than a traditional plastic/fiberglass/whatever kayak – they sit higher on the water, turn on a dime (even when you don’t mean to), and are more susceptible to the wind. But considering they are only 20-something pounds to carry and both fit easily in the back of the Jeep, they are exactly what we need.

Afterwards we did a quick turnaround at home and then walked down to meet neighbors at Cloudburst Brewing for a pint and succeeded at not buying the yummy looking dumplings from the food truck.

Saturday, July 1, 2023

HELLO SUMMER BREAK!!! (Well, kind of…)

I just finished my first (school) year working as an occupational therapist in a public school system. And now I get my summer break. Except I still have paperwork to do. Because I procrastinate. I might have ADHD. It’s on my summer to-do list to get evaluated for that. But I probably have ADHD so we’ll see if that actually happens.

It’s a running joke (but not funny) that if I want to be sure to never get something done I should write it down on a to do list. The more effective approach is for me to berate myself over days, weeks, months, years and then eventually I’ll hate myself enough that I finally do it. Super healthy.

We have two international trips planned for the summer – one two-weeker and another one-weeker – but aside from that my time is unstructured. I have some goals in mind to tackle, and maybe returning to blogging will be the thing that helps me finish the summer with my head held high.

In no particular order here are a few items on my mind as possible successes for this summer (no particular order):

  • Institute a daily exercise routine – start with stretching and then alternate with a cardio activity.
  • Institute a daily blogging routine.
  • Build the daily “long” dog walk from 30 to 60 minutes.
  • Spend time outside of the apartment with a friend 1x/week.
  • Get caught up on my medical appointments/checklist – blood draw, mammo, colon cancer screen (yay my MD says I can skip the colonoscopy for now!!!), dermatology, and ADHD assessment.

OK before I get overwhelmed and just go take a nap I’ll stop with that list. But my head is screaming with a list of all of the things that I *should* do and I’m already starting to hate myself for not listing that I’ll finish the bathroom painting that I started 4 years ago.