October 2019: The Recap

It’s already the end of October ! Time for the monthly recap post for this quite eventful month. There was Apple day last weekend in my city, hence the featured image! I brought some of these local organically grown apples home for free and made compote with them.

Great start — Because I had the pleasure to welcome my friend Wendy from the Netherlands for the first week of October. We’ve been online friends for a while and met her for the first time last year in Japan during our respective trips! Actually, ever since we’ve been seeing each other quite frequently for people who live in different countries.

Of course, it was a lot of fun! Shopping, eating great food, even working out together. Which brings me to my next point…

Fitness & Health 💪 — I know, I’ve made many attempts at trying to get fit in the past years, which didn’t really succeed. 🤡 While Wendy was here, we rearranged my closet together and to my horror, I realized that I couldn’t fit many of my clothes anymore (especially summer clothes). I mean, I knew I was a bit overweight for a while and I could always buy bigger clothes, but I think I reached a point where I really needed to tell myself to stop my unhealthy lifestyle. Since I’m working remote now, it’s been 10 times worse than when I was at a company. This is a curse but also a blessing, because it’s easier for me to take time for myself.

I started working out again with the Blogilates Beginner Calendar the day after the closet cleaning. I’ve attempted to do it many times, but I never managed to get through the second half. This time I just started where I left of during my last attempt a few months ago, and finished it from there 😀 My initial plan was to do the first half after, but in the end I just switched to her regular calendar! Because I didn’t feel challenged enough. Good sign, huh?

I’m by no means flexible and some moves are hell or simply impossible for me at the moment, so I’m glad there are modifications to make them easier (e.g. plank on your knees instead of your feet), or I just switch them out for something I can do.

I did really well this month and I’m proud of myself. Hope I’ll stick to it! My other goal for November would be to try harder to sleep early.

“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.” — Saadi

I also started to plan my meals again every week. While I know what kind of food I should privilege, I suck at managing groceries and assessing quantities too. Fortunately, I don’t have to meal prep since I’m always home.

Adulting 🦷 — This month, I managed to squeeze in two medical appointments, hurray! The first one was just a checkup at the dentist. Everything was fine, and she scaled my teeth. The other one was at the dermatologist, which was more a consultation for my back/chest acne that didn’t seem to heal well and resulted in keloids. Never pick your pimples. The doctor prescribed me a shot to treat the keloids next time I consult and some medicine for my acne too. My face was fine more or less, but my skin started to purge since I began to take the meds… I try to tell myself that I’m not the worst case out there and it’s enough to calm me down.

Avocado incident 🔪 🥑 — I stabbed myself in the palm with a knife while trying to remove the pit of an avocado. The wound wasn’t deep but I still went to the ER (for the first time of my life) to get it treated and got a stitch! It’s completely healed now. This never happened to me before this, and I hope it never does again!

Turning 26 🎂 — It’s official, I’m closer to 30 than 20 now! Time flies but turning 26 didn’t made me feel anything particular. I’m starting to find some white hairs more often than before lately too.

We planned to spend the day in Giverny, a small village in Normandy, to visit Claude Monet‘s house and garden, then the Museum of Impressionisms with my boyfriend but our plan fell through. The rail service went on strike and we discovered that our trains were cancelled right before heading out. The trains tickets were refunded but the e-tickets for the visit at the Claude Monet Foundation weren’t… I wasn’t too mad though, since I got them at discounted price.

In the end, we baked a chocolate cake, went to the local library to check out books and did a marathon of The Lord of the Rings, haha!

Inkto— what ? 🤡  — I told myself I’d do Inktober, but I didn’t draw a single piece of art! Oh well, it’s okay. It’s not like it never happened before!

I started to write about my trip in Japan 🇯🇵 — Hopefully I can publish the first post soon enough! It’s been over a year that I visited Japan, it was a long trip (3 weeks) and I felt the need to blog about it even after all this time.