finally, a week where we’ve been home the whole week and did lots of things… though perhaps not all of them. :) it was a quiet, productive week to welcome in the new quarter.

i think the highlight of the week was the new gym membership. for a while now, i’ve wanted to use a gym so that i could slowly do the “liftoff: couch to barbell” program, using dumbbells and weights (that i don’t have at home). this gym is a short bike ride away, is often empty, and offers use of their equipment plus the sauna!

there are some studies that link regular usage of saunas with lower incidence of alzheimer and dementia, and having the gene run in the family, anything that reduces that risk is something i’d like to explore. so i tried it out a couple of times this week, doing a couple of short weight training sessions and in the end used the sauna for 20 mins. it was really nice and i look forward to making this a routine!

i had two art classes and a chinese class this week, finished reading the last of the court of thorn and roses books, had a couple of breakfasts in town and even a pizza. :)

i also went running once, because the race date is looming on the horizon and i can still only run about 5kms… it’s a nice time of the year to run though, the days are long and the countryside smells wonderfully of orange blossom. also, there are poppies everywhere!

oof. this was going to be the week i was finally feeling good again and did ALL THE THINGS… and then one of the boy’s aunts passed away mid-week, and we went back north again for the funeral and to give some support to his mother (her sister).

funerals are always an awkward and sad affair, but whenever there is one, i’m reminded of this NPR piece:

“Always go to the funeral” means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to. I’m talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex’s uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been good versus evil. It’s hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.”

so that was it for the week. i read a bit, i swam in the in-laws municipal pool twice and soaked in the sun that shone gloriously a bit all over portugal. i designed a poster filled with stamps for an exhibition, figuring my way around vectorial editors, and actually kind of enjoying it for the first time.

on the way back south on sunday, we listened to the first part of craig’s interview with tim ferriss, and since then, words like “archetype” and “asceticism” have been on my mind. also, walking of course — and walking in japan in particular. we’ll see what the future holds!

blargh… what a week. every single time we meet the little niece, i return home with some sickness and this time was no exception. :( i’m doing a course of antibiotics and did the bare minimum all week, skipping classes and just napping a lot.

because of all the downtime, i ended up finishing some books: system collapse, on tyranny and best christmas book ever. i listened to “on tyranny” (a required read for the times we’re going through), but audio felt like the wrong format for it — i think i need to actually read the book, highlight passages, mark stuff i want to think about… and audiobooks are not great for that. so, something to read again in the future.

richard scarry’s book was a delightful throwback to my childhood. my mom used to work at a children’s hospital when i was small, and borrowed lots of books from the hospital’s library for us to read. scarry’s books were some of our absolute favorites (all the details!), and i’ve mentioned them so many times that paulo gave me one for christmas. <3

my new laptop came with a free 3-month apple tv subscription, so we’ve been using it to watch severance. i like the premise and the aesthetics of it, and also how the music feels so fitting to the ambiance. i’m enjoying it for now.

somehow, we mustered the energy to drive to olhão and see miguel araújo play, which is always a happy event. i couldn’t sing much on account of all the coughing, but it was still nice to make it there and use these tickets we’d bought so long ago.

the good news is that time and medication are doing their thing and i’m feeling better. i’m hoping for a productive week ahead, getting ALL THE THINGS done!

a week in the north, catching up with family and friends, and running all the errands. on our way to the hospital for the post-surgery check up (all good) we got rained on so hard that it felt like we were inside some cartoon, with rain just being poured on us by a crazy god. maybe it doesn’t rain that hard in the south? or maybe we just don’t go outside when it does, not really having to be anywhere in particular on any given day.

my only surviving grandma (who makes the best fried codfish) turned 90 years old and the family threw her a little birthday party on the weekend, with her 7 living children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. it was a loud and happy affair, as these things tend to be. it was also nice to spend time with tiny niece, and hear her say “a-na” for the first time. :)

entertainment-wise, we played carcassone with my brother and his wife (the big box, filled with expansions!) and i finished 2 books from the murderbot series. now i’m on the last one, and it feels a little bittersweet to be almost closing this chapter. :(

i also went swimming three times this week! years ago, i used to be really lazy whenever i went north, and do zero exercise for the duration of our stay. but last year, i started leaving a bag there with all the pool stuff in, and it changed everything. i got some pool cards for the swimming pools near my parents and the boy’s parents and just started going there. it works!

the bad news was that i seem to have caught a bug, either from the kid or from being rained on so much lately. *sigh*.

we spent a few days (including the boy’s birthday) decompressing in comporta, in a tiny home in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. it was just us and the pine trees swaying in the wind, a big window with a view to the pond. every time we are in a tiny house, i get a little enamored by the concept and dream of a tiny place of our own. i think part of the appeal of it is just the need to forcefully declutter and live with less stuff. it’s kind of hard to do that in a big house, but i find the idea mentally soothing.

we drove north to plant trees in leiria with postcrossing friends that we see once a year for this event. it was a hard job this year, with lots of rain the whole morning. i’m glad i had my yellow raincoat from aldi with me! <3

we watched “a colorful dream” (a czech animation movie the boy remembered watching during a long flight) and i finished reading funny story, a light romance as a palate cleanser. i immediately forgot my plan to read the library books and dipped into book 5 of the murderbot diaries. i’m a little bit obsessed with the series at this point, and can barely put the book down.

i overdid it on the running and spent the week with shin splints, which wasn’t much fun… but being back north, we got to spend some time with this cute marshmallow! she still doesn’t talk all that much, but she’s easy-going and up for anything — even with us, the uncle and auntie she only meets every few months. i’m really thankful for that.