Weekly Roundup: Belly Deep

 

A weekly round up: a weather report, eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Greetings from the other side of my trip to New Orleans!  I'll get the bloggy blog caught up on that soon, and in the meantime here is all the everyday stuff that we need to chat about.

We are in the midst of Snowmaggedon, and Doggo is here for it.  When we came home from our lunchtime walk, she had the choice of walking up the plowed driveway or walking in belly deep snow in the yard, and she made her choice.

A Weather Report

Sigh, one week ago I was walking around in this:

And then I came home and started walking in this:

Then it got even colder and we had our big snow blitz so hiking is off the table until things clear up.  Oh well.

Eats

Nothing new to report, just another round of our regulars.  Chicken burgers, crunch wraps, and cheeseburger soup.  I didn't take any new pictures of the finished products, but here is Doggo keeping an eye on the goods on burger night.

Workouts

The only interesting thing to report is that I've started doing bodyweight strength again.  I was on a good path of doing it regularly, but then I got sick in November and got myself a rib injury from coughing.  That put the kibosh on all upper body and ab work, and my lower body work was just squats and lunges, so it hardly felt worthwhile to keep doing those.

Last week I finally decided that even though I can't do upper body that I was ready to do some lower body if I could find something more interesting than the same old stale sets of squats and lunges.  Hey wait, didn't I read a blog post about that...oh yes, Kae asked ChatGPT to create strength workouts and she liked what it came up with.

So I "asked Kae's trainer" to give me a 20 minute no equipment lower body strength workout, and here is what it came up with [not including the warm up and cool down so that everything fits into one screen shot].

Anyways, AI is much better at creating workouts that I am, and I like this little routine.  Then I realized that I could ask it to give me an upper body workout that accommodates a rib injury, and sure enough it did.  It's not nearly as good, but also it doesn't hurt my sore spot.

Speaking of which, I think things might finally be healed up?  I haven't felt any twinges for a few days, but I also don't want to try to test it with pushups or a plank because that's been a bad idea in the past.  Ima stick to the simple rib friendly workout for the rest of the week and then see where things stand.

Watching

Sniff, I only have 10 more movies left in The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rewatch.  Time does fly.

I had started watching season seven of Outlander after a very long hiatus, and I remembered enough to mostly make sense of what I was seeing, but there were some characters and plot points that I didn't remember, so I watched a 20 minute YouTube video that recapped all six previous seasons and...wow...when you just lay it all out there that quickly it's a lot.  Those folks have done a lot of stuff in those six seasons.

Reading

Let's dish!  Since we last talked:

• I finished Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks, which was a book club pick.  Although all of the gross plague details and goings on in the 1660s sometimes got to be a bit much, I liked the main character, so I was happy enough to hang out with her.  I definitely would not have guessed the ending.
• I also finished The Pelee Project: One Woman's Escape from Urban Madness by Jane Christmas.  My entire reason for reading this book is that I went to Pelee Island a few years ago and I'm obsessed with all things islands.  All I can say is that I wanted more.  It was too much "escape from urban madness" and not enough island.
• I tried a couple of books that didn't take, and then I remembered my resolution to check out more Katherine Heiny, so I picked up Early Morning Riser.  Let me tell you, I was not disappointed.  It's hard to explain what her books are about, but they're terrific.  I'm almost done with it.

Normally I don't talk about TBRs since I have enough going on with CRs (current reads), but I've got a solid roster ahead of me.

• My Libby hold for Heart the Lover came in, so that's going to be next.  I can't wait to see what all the fuss is about.
• I was out hiking when I got the word that NICOLE'S BOOK IS OUT!!!  Naturally I ordered my copy then and there on the trail.  The last time that I heard about a hot book that sounded so good that I had to track it down in the middle of a hike was Crow Mary, so if that isn't a good sign I don't know what is.  Hopefully it will come in in the next few days.
• Last but not least, I dropped a whopping 53 cents for the kindle version of The Age of Innocence for CBBC!

So reading should be very good for the foreseeable future.

Peace Out!  Is the snow up to your dog's belly?  Have you ever watched a YouTube recap of a very long TV series?  Whatcha reading?  See you in a few days to talk about New Orleans*

*Actually the next post will probably be another Hitchcock summary, since that post is closer to being finished.  But the deets on Nola will be on the blog soon!