Fill the Cup
Dec. 30th, 2022 06:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spryngWays I can fill my cup in 2023:
- walks, even short ones
- runs, even short ones
- mindfully making and drinking tea
considering how very much tea I got for Christmas, this should practically be a goal
- read physical books
something I've noticed (and noted on social media), is that I will hesitate to pick up where I left off in an ebook because it means picking up my phone or eReader, and that just feels like Being on My Phone. Whereas, if I pick up a physical book, it feels like Reading a Book and Cabin Girl sees me Reading a Book and strangers can ask me about the Book I'm Reading (one made the mistake of asking what I was reading and I explained it was a retelling of a story in the Odyssey and she just kind of looked panicked and mumbled something about HS English), and I can also easily feel the progress I've made in just a few pages (and just a few more pages).
Don't get me wrong, I still love eBooks and there's a place for them (planes / ARCs / the ease of tossing money toward my favorite authors) but in my efforts to cut down on how many physical books I bought (and then had to deal with the storage of), I cut down on physical books entirely and I... also stopped reading as much. Some of that is correlation, because at the same time: kids, but some of that is definitely causation. There's just something about a book visibly waiting for you, the bookmark halfway through its body, and you could just read one page...
- visit the library
we don't have a good bookstore here (sorry little indie, but it's true), but we do have a library, and when I picked up Circe last week, the librarian who got my hold excitedly told me how much he loved it and if I did, too, he had recommendations and I *miss* that, those excitable book people, *my* people
also by using the library, I can read more physical books without also overwhelming us with the same
- protect my mornings
I don't yet know how to protect them from the kids -- and I might simply not be able to do that without losing the inevitable war of who can get up earlier -- but I can protect them from myself. That is, time sucks like tumblr and twitter and tabbing between websites that are all not writing. A little is fine, but I can quickly lose an hour without even noticing and *that's* what I need to fight against, jealously guard against.
- How, though? I'm still not sure. Set a timer. Go straight to dreamwidth and warm up my words then jump straight to my WIP? I will have to play with things, but this is one of the biggest ways I can fill my cup.
- be aware of how much time I spend on social media
Not just in the mornings, but throughout the day. I've been intentionally setting my phone aside more often and picking up the above-mentioned physical book. Or at least doing another French lesson.
- the power of a little goes a long way
two months after Baby Doore was born, I found there was a lot of times when I wouldn't be actively doing anything but also couldn't just get up and leave the baby to do something else. So I recommitted to DuoLingo. But it wasn't until the fall, when I finally broke my 100+ day streak, that I committed to doing it every day. Now it's at 436 days and all it takes is 5min to do a lesson and keep up my streak. But often those 5min become 10, 15, and recently I noticed I could read the French posts some of my friends write. I could understand the French songs I've been listening to for ages. I could answer basic questions in French.
All from an idle 5min a day.
And now I feel more like myself, the language-enthusiast of old. I'm 36 and learning French, jfc.
What other amazing things could I accomplish with just 5 min?
- lift heavy
I painted a square of chalkboard in the garage, next to my weight set-up. I'm going to draw an elephant on it today and partition it with 13 little lines -- one for each thousand of pounds an elephants weighs. Then I'm going to add up how much I lift each day / week and fill in the elephant until I've lifted an entire elephant's worth.
the idea came from my mom when she mentioned making a map using the distance I've biked each week and see how far I could have biked across the US by the end of the school year. I've already put 700 miles on the ebike, so I could get pretty far
but I don't need motivation to bike
my motivation there is Cabin Girl: the things she tells me in the morning, the songs she sings, the light of the sunrise and the rustle of the breeze
lifting, though, is solitary and while the gainz are all mine, it isn't enough to motivate me
lifting an elephant, if only pound by pound, though? That could work
That's all I can think of for now, but I'll add to this as I think of more.
- walks, even short ones
- runs, even short ones
- mindfully making and drinking tea
considering how very much tea I got for Christmas, this should practically be a goal
- read physical books
something I've noticed (and noted on social media), is that I will hesitate to pick up where I left off in an ebook because it means picking up my phone or eReader, and that just feels like Being on My Phone. Whereas, if I pick up a physical book, it feels like Reading a Book and Cabin Girl sees me Reading a Book and strangers can ask me about the Book I'm Reading (one made the mistake of asking what I was reading and I explained it was a retelling of a story in the Odyssey and she just kind of looked panicked and mumbled something about HS English), and I can also easily feel the progress I've made in just a few pages (and just a few more pages).
Don't get me wrong, I still love eBooks and there's a place for them (planes / ARCs / the ease of tossing money toward my favorite authors) but in my efforts to cut down on how many physical books I bought (and then had to deal with the storage of), I cut down on physical books entirely and I... also stopped reading as much. Some of that is correlation, because at the same time: kids, but some of that is definitely causation. There's just something about a book visibly waiting for you, the bookmark halfway through its body, and you could just read one page...
- visit the library
we don't have a good bookstore here (sorry little indie, but it's true), but we do have a library, and when I picked up Circe last week, the librarian who got my hold excitedly told me how much he loved it and if I did, too, he had recommendations and I *miss* that, those excitable book people, *my* people
also by using the library, I can read more physical books without also overwhelming us with the same
- protect my mornings
I don't yet know how to protect them from the kids -- and I might simply not be able to do that without losing the inevitable war of who can get up earlier -- but I can protect them from myself. That is, time sucks like tumblr and twitter and tabbing between websites that are all not writing. A little is fine, but I can quickly lose an hour without even noticing and *that's* what I need to fight against, jealously guard against.
- How, though? I'm still not sure. Set a timer. Go straight to dreamwidth and warm up my words then jump straight to my WIP? I will have to play with things, but this is one of the biggest ways I can fill my cup.
- be aware of how much time I spend on social media
Not just in the mornings, but throughout the day. I've been intentionally setting my phone aside more often and picking up the above-mentioned physical book. Or at least doing another French lesson.
- the power of a little goes a long way
two months after Baby Doore was born, I found there was a lot of times when I wouldn't be actively doing anything but also couldn't just get up and leave the baby to do something else. So I recommitted to DuoLingo. But it wasn't until the fall, when I finally broke my 100+ day streak, that I committed to doing it every day. Now it's at 436 days and all it takes is 5min to do a lesson and keep up my streak. But often those 5min become 10, 15, and recently I noticed I could read the French posts some of my friends write. I could understand the French songs I've been listening to for ages. I could answer basic questions in French.
All from an idle 5min a day.
And now I feel more like myself, the language-enthusiast of old. I'm 36 and learning French, jfc.
What other amazing things could I accomplish with just 5 min?
- lift heavy
I painted a square of chalkboard in the garage, next to my weight set-up. I'm going to draw an elephant on it today and partition it with 13 little lines -- one for each thousand of pounds an elephants weighs. Then I'm going to add up how much I lift each day / week and fill in the elephant until I've lifted an entire elephant's worth.
the idea came from my mom when she mentioned making a map using the distance I've biked each week and see how far I could have biked across the US by the end of the school year. I've already put 700 miles on the ebike, so I could get pretty far
but I don't need motivation to bike
my motivation there is Cabin Girl: the things she tells me in the morning, the songs she sings, the light of the sunrise and the rustle of the breeze
lifting, though, is solitary and while the gainz are all mine, it isn't enough to motivate me
lifting an elephant, if only pound by pound, though? That could work
That's all I can think of for now, but I'll add to this as I think of more.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-31 01:04 pm (UTC)I find the same about physical books and book interactions. Even with just my family, when I'm reading a physical book they can look at it, they can tell what I'm reading. On my Kindle, I can be on a completely different book from the last time and they'll have no idea. It changes the shape of book discussion.
Also I had to get rather sharp with my FIL because he was complaining about how Kids These Days Are Always On Their Phones And Never Read, and like...you literally have no idea whether they're reading on their phones, my dude, cut it out.