904th Friday Blog Roundup
Near the beginning of the pandemic, ChickieNob and I started walking daily to first-person treadmill videos. There are a billion out there. You just Google “virtual walk + name of place,” and YouTube spits out dozens of options. Usually we walk somewhere we know. Occasionally we walk somewhere we’re going. (This was super useful when we got to Belgium and could navigate to various places because we walked past them in the video — strange.) Most of the time, we mute the video and listen to an audio book at the same time.
But a few weeks ago, we tried walking to a television show. So just walking indoors, but replaying the fourth season of The Crown while we walked. First and foremost, it is such an enjoyable way to spend a half hour. I rarely think about how much time has passed because I’m into watching the show. Secondly, I’ve discovered that I walk so much faster when we walk to television shows. I shaved between one to two minutes per mile when we walk to a television show vs. the walking videos. Even when we put the walking videos on 1.5x the speed. It’s really strange. Margaret Thatcher just makes me walk very very quickly.
It’s a nice discovery.
*******
Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.
Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.
As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.
*******
And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- None… sniff…
Okay, now my choices this week.
No Kidding in NZ has a thought-provoking post. She walks the line between showing both truths — the happiness and the occasional sadness of living childfree after infertility. She writes: “Rationally and logically I might be at peace with my life, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t still have ouch moments, feel some of the emotions that we all feel from time to time, or worry about the future without children.” We are complex and need to create space to honour all feelings, as they come.
Lastly, Jewish IVF talks about how it has been a rough summer. I love this thought about seeing other people’s posts: “This is only filtering out one piece of it that has contributed to my mood. I need to remember the converse when scrolling through other people’s filtered reality skewed to the positive.” Her friendship questions at the bottom hit home. I think we are shown (via media and curated social media) a story about friendship that simply isn’t true for many people. It’s another post that stuck with me for a long time after reading.
The roundup to the Roundup: Walking quickly in place without leaving home. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 29 – August 5) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
3 comments
Thanks for including my post – and for understanding it.
I liked Jess’s blog about a book of delights. https://findingadifferentpath.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-delightful-recommendation.html An unrelated blogging friend was inspired by this book to blog for a year on daily delights. Now that Jess has recommended it too, I figure it must be good. And the post can’t help but make anyone smile.
PS. After you mentioned your walks, I sometimes do the same. I enjoy some of the English country walks, but walking through some of my favourite Italian towns is fun too! So thanks for the inspiration.
Every so often, though, if I am bingeing something and don’t want to stop, I will work out to a TV programme. I try to set a pace at the beginning, and I’ve done enough workouts to make up my own programme now (and there’s a good mix of walking/dancing etc in it too), and it makes the workout time fly!
When it’s raining (or too cold), and I can’t walk in my subdivision, I exercise in front of the TV. If I hit the right time, my preference is to watch Rick Steves travel shows. It’s the perfect amount of time. But our PBS station doesn’t always come in, so my second choice is Cold Case or Forensic Files – type shows. That’s helpful, because, during commercials, I can do pushups and stuff that interfere with watching the screen.