August: Eclipse
- ⚖️ I went up 2 kgs in July. For real. There was the Priorat trip, the world cup fueled by beer, a couple bags of lörsdagsgodies (gummies)… I finally hit my limit, and decided to do something about it: CICO, Calories In, Calories Out. I have accepted I am NOT someone who can eat intuitively, and that I need to weight my food and count my calories, at least until I get to my weight goal, but possibly until the end of times.
- 🍉 I have discovered a calorie-counting app called Cronometer! It is brilliant, it is Canadian (YAY for boycotting the USA!), it is miles ahead of MyFitnessPal and I have already lost 4kgs after only one month using it! The free version does everything I need, but I specifically signed up for premium for the AI Photo Logging tool which I'll use on my upcoming trip to Brazil.
- 🏋️♀️ One week into my weight loss journey, I decided to stop being lazy and to just start going to the damned gym – which is, quite literally, inside my own home! We have a Sole F85 treadmill and a functional cable trainer Inspire FT2.
- 💪 Programmed a simple workout (A/B split) to get me in and out of the gym in 30 min. Losing weight is nice, but building muscle and getting stronger is way nicer! I want elderly me to be in the best shape possible.
- 💾 Coded a simple but useful plate calculator for the FT2. The plates have numbers but no labels for weights. And the weights depend on if you're using one or two stacks (2:1 ratio), accessories etc. I made an excel calculator years ago, but wanted something I could quickly check WHILE in my home gym, on my phone, resting between sets. Javascript to the rescue and my calculator has been way more useful than I imagined!
- 🪢 Bought a set of cheap resistance bands to take with me to Brazil. I'll be there for one month and don't want to come up with excuses and undo all my progress. I'm going to make my life as easy as possible, so I don't bail out when it comes to workouts and logging calories.
- 🎹 I am back at the piano too! And practicing for about one hour a day! I used to say I couldn't fit even 30 min of practice, but the truth is… I was doomscrolling and watching tv, and now I just sit at the piano bench and work on my pieces instead.
- 😎 The ECLIPSE was amazing, incredible, something I won't ever, ever forget! I feel so lucky to have seen it with my own eyes! It is just so hard to describe with words, and photos and videos don't do it justice (just like with the Aurora Borealis). It needs to be SEEN. Access to our favorite spot for photographing the stars was limited on that day, so we just drove around until we found a spot with the right orientation. Parked our car, made ourselves and our dog comfortable, opened a bottle of delicious alcohol-free wine and enjoyed the views!
Blog
No desire to blog AT ALL. I'd rather be outside! I posted a Calvin comic strip and a page from my sketchbook and that's it.
Piano Progress
- Finally done with étude no. 111 of my method book (Russian School of Piano Playing). I have not been able to reach 200bpm, but I did get to 160 across the whole piece, and can do 200 in some sections. It's good enough so I moved on from this.
- Worked on piece no. 114 Chinese Song. Such a lovely little thing.
- Worked on sight reading a ton of material!
🍿 Movies & TV
- He-Man: Masters of the Universe!
- The Devil Wears Prada
- The Devil Wears Prada 2
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day. One of the things I love the most is going to the Cinema during a heat wave, getting a huge diet coke, and just forgetting about the entire world for 2-something hours in that nice, cool, AC.
- Freaky Friday. This was way funnier than we expected, it had some great moments.
- Freakier Friday. This was less funny than we expected, the comedy was definitely NOT on point, way too physical and exaggerated, but it had some good moments.
- Spider Noir. I liked this. It has a slow, old-timey pace, good superhero lore. I watched half of the eps. in black & white and the rest in color.
- Code 3. Surprinsingly good! I think the poster does the movie a disservice, it is definitely not a cheap comedy with characters screaming all over the place. Give it a try, it is a thoughtful, intense movie.
- The Invite. One of THE WORST movies of my life. I don't get all the imdb reviews saying "oooh this is so intelligent", "oooh the dialogues are sooo deep". NOPE. Dialogues were absolutely shit and NOT deep and NOT interesting. Just because people are talking about sex, that doesn't make it instantly avantgarde and interesting. It honestly left me wondering about the level of literacy and education of those reviewers, to think so highly of a pretty mediocre, cliché movie. Have seen similar (identical?!) movies at least a dozen times before.
- Started watching Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.
- Finished watching my 2nd c-drama, Love in the Clouds. It was nice.
- Started and finished my 3rd c-drama, Pursuit of Jade. It started strong and I was hooked. Then it went downhill, I found myself watching eps 28 to 37 in 2x speed and even skipping every scene with the main couple. The ending absolutely SUCKED.
- Forced myself to start my 4th c-drama, Love Between Fairy and Devil, but kind of gave up on ep. 3 because I absolutely HATE the female lead voice and affected acting. I hated it so much, I think I'm completely over any c-drama, k-drama, j-drama, whatever. It looks like all that love and obsession I felt was just a phase after all.
- Started watching Criminal Minds. Nothing like a good cosy murder to put a smile on my face. Watched all of season 1 and am almost done with season 2.
📚 Reading
- Finally done with Agatha's They Came to Baghdad. A really fun read!
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