Okay so I am back from my Christmas and New Year’s break. I took that time off to recalibrate some things in my life. Essentially from this point on, uploads should be following the usual schedule. I do have a State Election campaign that will take up a lot of my time but I will challenge myself to stick to our agreement.

One thing that has been so encouraging recently, is that I have made substantial steps towards reinstating my daily workout routine. I won’t go over every detail but it is a very concentrated cardio and core body workout.

I started developing it in 2018 and was still going strong throughout the first year of the pandemic. However, in late 2020 I broke one of my fingers and couldn’t train for months. To compensate I only retained exercises which didn’t involve the use of my hands, mainly core exercises. This went on for some time but wasn’t delivering the same results as before. Although that was anticipated, I still eventually stopped altogether.

The fittest I’ve ever been was during those years when my routine was rock solid (don’t assume my muscles are rock solid, exercise is about health, I’m not trying to turn myself into a cloud of muscles). Now, I have gotten back about 2/3 of my routine and the trajectory is looking promising. With a little bit more time and effort I will climb that hill. Also, I added swimming into the routine, but I don’t take that seriously, just a little something extra.

The other thing I’ve been getting back into with gusto is my French lessons. Oui, mon français est mouvais, but I am doing more deliberate learning. Instead of rehashing the things I’ve covered a million times, I decided to educate myself on things that have been confusing me about the language.

Words and phrases is where I started my journey, which is a place I think most people would begin with, but I was missing something which I have taken for granted with English, grammar. Verbs in French have different suffixes added to them depending on who you are referring to. For example, prendre (to take) is “je prends” meaning “I take” while “nous prenons” is “we take”. Crazy right?

That’s the funny thing, only knowing English has meant that it has been so ingrained and natural for me that I forgot how core foundational things such as grammar are in communication. Moving forward I want to continue my own individual learning, then when I hit B1 level (it’s a grade for the competency of your language skills) I will take up in person classes.

Last thing before I sign off is that I will be getting back into my writing this year. Last year didn’t sparkle on that front but I want to make 2023 the year where that changes. So if you like reading my short stories on your kindle then stay tuned for more.

All in all, life is good and I hope yours is too.

Shout out to my Hedites who were revisiting old posts throughout my holiday, love to see enthusiasm.