General Sorts of Stuff

Walk #8

My post for Fit is a Feminist Issue yesterday was all about how much I have enjoyed walking the dog at around the same time every day for the past week. Being consistent with my exercise is always a challenge for me so even a one week streak is a victory for me.

But, as pleased as I am with my streak, I am especially pleased with myself for heading out for my walk today.

It was raining – so that was one challenge.

I accidentally missed our usual walk time because I was in the middle of reorganizing my office – that was another challenge.

If I didn’t have that 7 day streak going, I probably would have just not gone this evening.

But I do have that streak happening. That means that the decision to go on a walk has essentially already been made, it just comes down to timing.

So, instead of choosing whether or not to go, I just looked at the shape of my evening and decided when I could fit our walk in.

Khalee and I headed out at 8:10 and even though it was dull and drizzly, it was grand to be out and we had a great time.

A light-haired dog on a lease walks across a bridge at dusk. A suburban street is visible at the top of the photo.
Khalee is a very determined walker.

One of the things I wanted to do on that walk, aside from getting exercise, was to come up with something to write about this evening and this was what occurred to me.

I wanted to capture and remember this feeling of how my walk became even more automatic today – just part of the landscape of my day.

When I am coaching people about building new habits, I encourage people to find a way to take the thing they want to do out of the realm of choice. The example I always use is brushing your teeth – you may not feel like doing it, it may not be much fun, but it is important and it is part of your day, and, most of the time, you don’t waffle, you just do it.

Today, my walk was like brushing my teeth – the weather didn’t matter, the fact that it was later didn’t matter – my walk wasn’t about ‘if’ I was going to go, it was about when.

Go me!

(and Go Khalee! too, of course)

May The Force Of Carrie Fisher Be With You

It’s Star Wars Day

May the Fourth Be With You

(And also with you)

(When you grow up Catholic, you just can’t shake some habits.)

I should be prime Star Wars audience. Almost everyone else who was born in the early 1970s seems to have formative memories of the first time they saw the movies and they have STRONG OPINIONS about different aspects of the films.

I do not.

I may have seen one of the movies, or parts thereof, when I was young but I haven’t seen all of them, even now. I did, however, play the hell out of Star Wars with my friends when I was a kid.

I didn’t know much about her but I thought that Princess Leia kicked ass.

I still do.

And, luckily, I’m not burdened by any details from any of the movies that might contradict that.

However, even more that Princess Leia, I think that Carrie Fisher kicked ass. She lived life out loud and she did it on her own terms.

How could you not admire someone like that?

So, when Star Wars Day rolls around, I celebrate by thinking about Carrie Fisher.

Photo of actor Carrie Fisher and a quote from her that reads 'Please stop judging me about whether or not I aged well. Youth and beauty are not accomplishments, they're the happy by-products of time and/or DNA.
Image source: https://me.me/i/please-stop-judging-me-about-whether-or-notlaged-well-youth-6430031
Image of actor Carrie Fisher with the quote 'Stay afraid but do it anyway. What's important is the action. You don't have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow."


PS – Sometimes I have themed snacks, too, obviously. I’ll take any excuse for a themed snack.

Oh, here I am!

Now, nothing awful happened but this has been a frustrating start to 2018.

There is some sort of plague going around this year. It’s not quite the flu but must be from the same neighbourhood. It starts with a vague feeling of being unwell, progresses to something similar to the way depression feels, circles you into brainfog – and those are just the mental symptoms. Your body is going through aches and pains and nausea and sniffling and coughs in various horrible variations.

I had zero energy for weeks – I was waking up and immediately thinking about how many hours it was until bedtime.

Not that I think life is all about productivity, but I hardly got anything done – the only stuff I did was established routines – making meals, going to a few meetings, drawing a little a writing a little every day.

Last Thursday, I complained about it on Facebook and Friday morning I woke up feeling like I remembered how to be human. I wasn’t feeling completely better but I felt much more like a person with symptoms instead of a bunch of symptoms shaped like a person.

I’ll have to remember that FB cure in the future.

Anyway, so here I am, back to communicating, just like I’m people.

And I have this song bouncing around in my head, and so will you. 😉

Roads to Hell and All That

I feel like this blog is paved with all kinds of good intentions.

The extreme smirk here seemed to suit this post. :)

The extreme smirk here seemed to suit this post. 🙂

I mean, I hope it is not actually leading you to hell or anything but it is a bit hellish for me to look at all the things that I meant to do and I didn’t quite manage to execute. I struggle a bit, not so much with not knowing what to say but more with not knowing where to say it.

However, lately I have been getting much better with creating and cultivating ‘containers’ for my thoughts and I have a good idea now of what I want to put on my writer/storyteller facebook page, what I want to put on my creative life coaching facebook page, what I want to put here and what I want to put on my professional website, ChristineHennebury.com.

On the one hand, I know it is a bit mad to have so many separate places to put things but it also has a certain appeal to me so I’m going to try my new system for a while and see how it plays out.

Here’s to experimenting with online spaces! Please be a little patient while I figure it all out.