Goodbye July, Hello Augustus

Another month has gone by, and as I haven’t posted in the meantime let me catch you up.

Well last month didn’t start out that well. Not only was the weather mostly spring like after a really good last week of June. I also caught a cold from my dad. In the beginning this cold was quit severe and as corona is not yet over the anxiety took over a bit. Never had a fever, so it probably was just a cold.

However I made sure I didn’t go out unnecessary and I also ordered some groceries to be delivered. One of the groceries were a fresh fruit & vegetable box. I wasn’t that hungry, so I experimented with some smoothies. There were 2 recipes that were a success. I used Jimmy Joy Plenny Shake https://nl.jimmyjoy.com/ and Vital Proteins to make them more filling.  The amount of fruit was eyeballed and not measured out in cups or grams.

• A pineapple peach smoothie
  • Banana
  • Peaches
  • Pineapple
  • 1 teaspoon of chia seeds
  • Banana flavor Plenny Shake (1 scoop)
  • Vital Proteins original non flavored (1 scoop)

If they are too dense you can add some almond milk or other milk of your choice to make them more liquid.

I also wanted to start a new fitness challenge at the beginning of the month. However the cold made that first 10 minutes so hard and I got defeated, and didn’t have the motivation to try a week or even two weeks later again.

With the rain and the self-isolation I imposed upon myself that walking challenge that I was very much looking forward to, of course didn’t happen those first 2 weeks of July.

All was not yet lost, but as I experienced during lock-down, the more I was forced to stay in the house, or forced myself in this case, the less I wanted to go out.

Half way trough the month I spend a very nice day with my niece and nephew. At times it seems they were more interested in my tablet and Youtube kids. But the fact that they didn’t let me go home when their dad came home, and I got a text from my sister the next day that they had fun, gives me hope they like me equally or more than my tablet alone.

The job situation is not really certain yet and the press seemingly knowing more than we do sometimes made me more nervous and withdrawn.

Measures to battle corona are getting stricter again as well. While shops and restaurants/bars are still open, the places to wear face masks have been extended, not only indoors, but also as soon as I leave the door. Teleworking is mandatory again as well for my province. Was still doing this last one however was considering to go to the office maybe once a week this month, but will need to let go of those plans.

I don’t know if there are other wearers of glasses out there that have any tricks on not getting their glasses fogged up when wearing mouth/nose covers. When it was just mandatory in shops (only since July 11^th), it wasn’t that much of a problem as then I was mostly out of the shop right before my glasses started getting foggy. But now I have to wear the mask longer it is getting more difficult.

In trough fashion on how I cope with stress I probably gained about 10 lbs, because of unhealthy eating habits. It can be way more, or less, but I don’t have the courage and motivation yet to check and change. And of course I did some online shopping. This time I had my eye on a Happy Planner (https://thehappyplanner.com/) stationary and stickers. I’m subscribed to there newsletter for about 2 years now, but as taxes can amount to about half or 3/4^th of the shipping fees, an order from the US can become quite expensive. So I never took the plunge to order a 12 or 18 month planner. However I found a Spanish based webshop (https://craftelier.com/en-gb/) with a bunch of Happy Planner and other scrapbook and crafting supplies. I probably went a bit overboard with what I purchased and because there are so much cute and functional stickers for the Happy Planner I ordered some extra on Friday from the Dutch webshop https://www.hobbywerken.nl/. Hope they arrive on Monday or Tuesday, because they predict a heatwave as of Wednesday and at my parents house it is much cooler than my place. So will probably invite myself to stay there a couple of days, but they don’t know it yet.

Hope your month was more fun than mine and for a better August.