This is my monthly (?) thought that I wish I didn’t need an Instagram account to view “public” posts on it. I get that it’s so I sign up and help small businesses but I just don’t wanna.
This is my monthly (?) thought that I wish I didn’t need an Instagram account to view “public” posts on it. I get that it’s so I sign up and help small businesses but I just don’t wanna.
When going out and eating feels extravagant.
Yes that’s a pasty, but because it’s China it has sweet potatoe noodles in!
In parenting news
Yumo talks about some of the things he sees in a book. His Chinese is currently stronger than his English.
In other news, I’ve turned off notifications for Wechat and Whatsapp which normally leads me to checking my phone more just in case. Now though, I think I’m starting to turn a corner and feel like I’m overcoming the need to read messages the instant they appear.
We’ve all been ill the last 4/5 days (NOT COVID) but it’s meant I didn’t go back to work today and that I don’t feel ready to go back tomorrow. It just isn’t great honestly. I’ve not had the time to prepare and it’s just, frustrating.
Two of my favourite writed have made lists either today or yesterday. Austin Kleon has done 100 things that made my year that I’m slowly going through and picking at and Jason Kottke’s 21 things that kept me going in 2020 which I’m using for suggestions.
Laptops killed work-life balance - Saw this and it has been something I’ve been thinking about. Sometimes the convenience feels too much and I’d be better with a desktop. The thing is that I can’t be trusted!
Happy New Year everyone!
The clock ticked over just as we were putting our two to bed.
If this isn’t nice.
Does anyone grind their coffee at home? I think I’d like to, interested if anyone does?
Obviously I’m looking at things that aren’t cheap!
Our youngest’s favourite food is anything + plum sauce. Today was steamed fish and plum sauce and rice with plum sauce. Plum sauce on its own wasn’t allowed.
I like this reminder.
The parent who thinks this is an occupation you “win,” who believes it’s about those special, big moments, is missing a lot of majestic life as well.
It’s not about the future, about getting through the terrible twos or terrible teens, on some idyllic end-result. The next milestone is not there to assure us the days of toil and hardship were worth it. We can’t forget to notice and appreciate the little pleasures of the experience, the right-here-and-now.
I always like reading John Gruber on Facebook, here he echos the Seth Godin’s piece, Facebook could do something but they just don’t want to.
Hired a lounge for the afternoon while the grandparents watched the kids.
We watched The Invisible Man which is Lyra’s cup of tea but definitely not mine.
The first rule of lasagne club is you do not talk about lasagne club.
The second rules is you can’t just have the cheese from the top. If you want more cheese then you have to eat the whole piece first.
Also, I thought Elise found the mushrooms I’d chopped up but she was just complaining about some onion.
Today was my 26th day of walking a(t least a) mile a day (in one go) in December. Tonight, I forgot to start my Outdoor walk workout on my Apple Watch but I got a buzz half way around to ask me if that was what I was doing and it had recorded the walk so far, which is cool.
I was thinking of writing a top 10 things I learned and I did honestly start thinking about that but I’m struggling to find the time at the moment. So, i’ll leave with you the two that I thought of so far.
As well, I’m happy with not doing any running at all, I meant to but with the walk I’m out of the flat pretty quickly as long as everything is charged and I don’t need to do anything
I keep coming back to Seth Godin’s post on social media, why it is the way it is and how it could be better. If only.
The successful people in your community or your industry (please substitute ‘happy’ for successful in that sentence) don’t act the way the influencers … do.
I can’t recommend Midnight Diner on Netflix highly enough. It’s about a small diner in Tokyo and the people in it. If it persuades you, I’m not tempted to look at my phone while watching and I watch all of the introduction. It’s nice in the way Ted Lasso is.
Happy Christmas everyone x
My Christmas resolution, which is a thing now unless it was already a thing, anyway, I’m going to read all the books I bought or was bought that have been piling up.
If I read half as much as I played on my phone, it’ll be easy…
2020 is the year of the Kind Movie — and it couldn’t have come at a better time
Also, tv because it mentions Ted Lasso and while I don’t think I agree with all the kind films I do like the idea. There’s lots of recommendations and discussion too in the Metafilter thread I saw the link.
And while I’m at it, I had meant to talk about Speed Cubers and Queen’s Gambit because they both caught my eye for similar reasons. The first is a documentary ostensably about people doing Rubik’s cube’s REALLY fast and that’s why I started it but it turns out to be about the rivalry and friendship. The latter, I just like how it resolved it in the end.
Fell down a bit this afternoon with using my phone but had lunchw ith Lyra, wrapped some presents am caught up on His Dark Materials, did a lesson of the Chinese course and cooked dinner while Elise watched Moana. So it’s not been so bad.
I’m trying to be more focused today, possibly tomorrow too, which mostly means not picking my phone up every ten seconds and using my computer more purposefully. Today’s struggle was trying to sit through of all of this TED talk without opening a new browser window to search for the speaker’s name or sending a message to someone about it. I managed it, which I’m pretty proud of.
It’s called Want to change the world? Start by being brave enough to care and I liked it a lot because it was something I benefited from hearing.
This time I woke up when the youngest crawled into bed with us sometime between 12 and 5am. Then the eldest joined us around 5:30. It this isn’t nice. I don’t know what is.
I feel like I’m better at knowing when i’m reaching my ‘breaking point’, especially with regards to my children and that point where I need to do something before I lost my patitence.
Though as I thought about writing this in my head I felt like breaking point are the wrong words since, it suggests that it’s a one time thing and not something that happens on a semi-regular basis.
I felt it today with the kids, being away in the hotel for a couple of days was nice, it really was but it got a bit much at the end.
What to do is when I notice it’s happening is a work in progress.
These two links popped up though that felt relevant：
From the latter link is this line, which reasonated a whole lot because it says what I’ve been trying to do recently.
Try to put how you want to feel ahead of what you want to be or even do.