Thursday photo #206 – taking control

For the past few months, I’ve felt a bit like I was drifting along. There was always too much to do and not enough time. And yet, I felt like I should be doing more.

Fitness and weight loss

After losing Pluto last week, I realised it was time to get back into running. I had tended to walk most days because I didn’t have time to both run with Bubbles and walk Pluto. So, now it’s just me and Bubbles going out each day, there’s no excuse not to run.

I’ve entered a triathlon for July so I need to pick up my exercise anyway, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try and lose some weight. So, I’m working with XLS-nutrition, trying out some of their meal replacement shakes. I’ll be replacing two meals a day for the first four weeks, then one meal a day for the next four.

I started yesterday and I’ll admit the first day was tough. I did over three hours of exercise – walking in the morning and then a long run in the evening. It was a beautiful day for it but having eaten very little, my energy levels were low by the end of the run. That said, I’m 3lbs down already having only been doing it for 24 hours. If I can keep that off for the rest of the week I’ll be happy with my progress.

Time to read

With my freelance work picking up a bit, I always end up cutting back on the things I enjoy. This time, I’m hoping things will be different. I’ve been getting up early in the mornings to go for a run before taking the girls to school. Then I try to make time to read for a few minutes in the evenings before bed. This is currently an easy thing to fit in because I’ve had such a fun book to read.

A few years ago, I interviewed one of my favourite bloggers. The series was about inspirational parents and I had hand-picked El to take part because I was so utterly inspired by her writing. If you read that interview or her blog, you won’t be surprised to hear that El has now written a book. It’s called We Need to Talk About The Conditions of My Imprisonment… and other funny parenting stories. As well as El herself, it features some other amazing bloggers including one of my favourites, Alan from OMG its a girl. El said:

I put the book together because I wanted to compile an anthology that was funny and quirky and didn’t fit the standard cookie cutter “how to parent” book.

I personally think she’s achieved what she set out to and more. If you’re looking for an alternative parenting book with some hilarious short stories in it, this is the book for you.

Back to school

I was away for most of the weekend on my sister’s hen do, so I didn’t spend much time with the girls. I’d also been away with work on the Wednesday evening and Thursday, so it was great to have some time with them on Friday. I was so impressed with how well they got on with the Electro Dough Kit we were trying out, it has made me keen to do more science with them.

Libby had her parents evening yesterday, which went well as always. She’s finding maths difficult though, so I’m going to be looking around for alternative ways to help her with that. I think at this stage we’ll get a maths app on the tablet for her to play on, but further down the line I wouldn’t rule out tutoring. I’d hate for her to grow up thinking she can’t do maths.

Our Thursday photo #206

I love this photo of the girls with their science kit. It did make me laugh doing physics with Lia in her tiara!