It is 4pm on Friday the 18th of June. I have had what I would call a pretty successful week. My daughter is asleep (I should wake her up, napping this late is paramount to a poor night’s sleep), my step-son is at his dads and my partner is out getting her nails done. And all I want to do is eat junk, play games, and sleep. These cravings are quite low on the desire-o-scale so I’m not too worried, in actual fact I welcome them. As mentioned I’ve had a good week and wanting to do these things are akin to having my pudding after eating all of my dinner, vegetables included.
So you want to hear about my wild fun in the twilight of last night? My daughter decided to wake up at midnight, less than an hour after I got to sleep, and after an hour or so of trying to get her back down it was unanimously decided that I should take her downstairs to tire her out. By 3am I thought she was done and took her back to bed but it was still over half an hour before she drifted off for roughly three hours sleep. How I envy her energy and alertness upon waking for the day while zombie dad followed her around offering snacks and cleaning up the multitudes of droppings she leaves for me. What a symbiotic relationship we have. By 9am I had returned home from dropping the kids in to school and nursey and my partner was in work. By 10 I was in the gym and around half 11 I was home. Though I didn’t feel as strong as I did Monday I’m glad I forced myself to go and actually lifted heavier weights and did better than I had four days prior.
I didn’t make it to the gym on Wednesday as I’d originally planned as I was still aching from Monday’s session and Tuesday’s mammoth (for me at least) ten thousand-plus step walk. Since Monday I have made sure to leave the house at least once for nothing but a simple walk and I feel worlds better for it. Every day I have clocked a minimum of five thousand steps (a routine I’ll be attempting to keep up going forward) and in the space of three of those days I started and finished Matt Haig’s very funny book entitled Humans. Not that I plan to write up a review at all but the premise is an alien takes over a mathematicians body to stop him alerting the world to an age old problem he has found the solution to. What follows is a very funny take on human, specifically British, life. With no disrespect to the author it is not a particularly memorable book, nor a classic, but totally enjoyable and thought-provoking at times. It’s great to read these ‘normal’ books on occasion to remind myself that what I write doesn’t have to be a classic or hold up against the greatest works of our time. I think some of my reluctance to write is the dark cloud in my head telling me I’ll never be as good as him or her, and what I write will never compare to this or that. When I do write I know the achievement will be in doing so, and the ultimate achievement is finishing. Anything further is a bonus but still I do find myself refusing to start with this ‘who am I to be great’ complex. I know that is something I have to ignore, overcome, or even use to spur me on. I believe the response to ‘who am I to be great’ is ‘who am I to not?’
Following the previous paragraph, and just after 4pm, my daughter woke up in not the best mood so after a couple of hours attempting to keep her happy, and now my partner is back, I have returned to finish up here. As mentioned I have been to the gym twice this week. I have also done over 38,000 steps since Monday and I have been tracking what I eat from the same day. I have been at, or below, my deficit each day and while it has only been five days I am feeling better, feeling positive, and looking forward to jumping on the scales tomorrow. I know the weekend may not be easy but my aim next week is to maintain what I have done or go one better.
The remainder of the day shall be sent getting sweet little Rosie off to bed (and hoping she sleeps well) before doing some stock updates for our sweets business. Oh, and the is the small matter of England versus Scotland in the Euros. In case anybody is wondering who I support in club football I am a big Manchester United fan so I do find myself struggling to fully enjoy and appreciate the Euros while I scour for any kind of transfer news ahead of the new season. Trying to watch every single match possible isn’t the worst way to distract myself I suppose.
In other news I’ve been listening to plenty of Eric Thomas (The hip hop preacher, check him out if you haven’t already) and even though I’ve listened to him for years he never fails to elicit something within me. Not only am I hyped but I feel a sense of clarity and determination like I know who I am, what I want, how to get it and how much I have to stick at it no matter what. As he says “when you want it as bad as you want to breathe you will be successful”. Over the next few weeks I should be returning to work and though I have my own anxieties and worries over that I want to ensure that I use the remaining time off to work on my body, my mind, and my creativity. Right now a story of a large family spanning three generations with pretty much every drama and scandal possible is clogging my head so I feel I have to get something solid down on paper regarding that. We shall see. Until next time.