Categories
just life

52 good things in 2025

i wanted to have posted this much earlier… but then life happened, etc etc. last year, i kept a note of happy things as they were taking place, as a way to notice and be thankful for them. i wanted to post them here — a kind of archive of sorts. so here it goes:

  1. a speedy surgery and speedy recovery
  2. not having cancer!
  3. every time we’re back home for a stretch of time, after being away
  4. winter days with crisp blue skies
  5. our comfort foods at natsu
  6. so many pizzas
  7. my new treadmill
  8. some unexpectedly cheap alpaca mohair wool
  9. finishing the big algarve hike
  10. almond blossom season
  11. being able to run 10k
  12. matcha lattes
  13. riding our bikes together
  14. a few quiet days in comporta
  15. sharing books with laura
  16. sauna at the new gym
  17. affordable chinese classes
  18. art classes
  19. the novelty of a blackout
  20. a tuscan getaway with friends
  21. gelato, picci & laoganma
  22. farmácia de proximidade service
  23. running around kungsholmen
  24. cycling in aland, eating pancakes
  25. swedish cardamom buns
  26. new birds!
  27. laura saying “maínha”
  28. a bounty of yellow tomatoes
  29. mom turning 70

  30. strength training, getting a little stronger
  31. seeing paulo finish a half-marathon again
  32. being able to swim freestyle for many pools in a row
  33. saying no to stuff we don’t want to do
  34. doing a product from start to finish
  35. the university library in aveiro and its cantina
  36. easy game nights with friends
  37. seeing a very big important thing taking shape
  38. laura running to us with open arms
  39. a more efficient new AC
  40. celebrating the boy running 1500kms/year
  41. a nice christmas postcard to send to family
  42. laura recognizing the moomins
  43. seeing the parents join and enjoy the local gym (after years of our pestering)
  44. cheaper and unlimited mobile data
  45. tree planting
  46. celebrating 20 years postcrossing
  47. enjoying murderbot and attorney woo
  48. meeting friends we hadn’t seen in over a decade
  49. the nice ferry to aland
  50. laura saying her name “lau-ah” when poked on the belly button (a trick we taught her)
  51. warm july nights with events in town
  52. being confident handling a barbell

maybe “happy” is not the right adjective for these… it’s more of a list of milestones and small joys, with some other stuff that gave us perspective or helped us grow. there’s a lot of connection and everyday pleasures there, but also big important things. 2025 veered very sharply at the end, but i think this helps us remember it also had a lot of good in it. :)

Categories
weeknotes

weeknotes, 11/26

we watched “if i had legs i’d kick you” in the cinema which was heartbreaking and hard to watch — but i think also important and eye-opening. to counter that seriousness, i’ve been going through the game changers series of books, which feel a bit like gay hockey fanfiction. maybe someday my brain will feel like something different, but for now, light and easy are what it wants.

after much indecision and postponing, i got myself a second-hand smartwatch on vinted. i’m trying to improve my overall fitness and it’s nice to have some metrics to track the evolution over time. i also wanted something that integrated with the apple ecosystem, which fitbit (my previous step counter thinguie) did not. so after going back and forth quite a bit on which one to get (the choice feels endless), i settled on a garmin venu 2s that was half-price and had no scratches. :D i’m really enjoying it so far!

mid-week we went north to participate in the annual plantation in leiria. this time, my brother also came, even though he broke his wrist some weeks ago and couldn’t really do much. but he brought little niece along, and that brightened up the mood on another rainy morning. in the end, she even got a ride on the tractor!

on the weekend it was my grandma’s 91st birthday, and the whole family came to celebrate the big day, even some cousins we don’t see very often. :) grandma is very old and grumpy, and tends to periodically get on her children’s nerves, but she’s still relatively autonomous and likes to chat. lately, she’s been “couchsurfing” in her sons and daughters’ houses, rotating to the next place when tensions increase. it’s lucky she still has 7 children, so they can all take turns and remain cool!

Categories
one second everyday

february 2026 — one second everyday

half of february was spent in the north, and half back home at last. in the middle, there were elections, lots of rain (and then some glorious sunshine!), the olympics, time spent with friends and family and lots of nice food too! :)

Categories
weeknotes

weeknotes, 10/26

this turned out to be an unexpectedly deep week.

i finished listening to when the cranes fly south, and ugh… what a punch in the gut it was. maybe it’s because we’ve been on the other side of this story so recently, but i feel like this should be required reading for anyone with aging parents. the whole thing is just an awakening call to the realities of aging, from the side we don’t usually hear about: the person who is old. as children, we do what we can to make sure our parents or loved ones are safe and comfortable, but from their perspective, do these decisions actually benefit them? and if they’re not perceived as beneficial, then what are we doing…? it made me take a step back a bit, and look at situations from a different viewpoint.

and then, later in the week, we went to the theater to watch “catarina e a beleza de matar fascistas”, to which i had gotten tickets in december last year, not even knowing if we’d be home for it in march. the play was as poignant as everyone said it would be, both inspiring and really painful to watch to the end. i still don’t know what to think about the whole thing — especially of the public’s interaction with it while we’re all collectively trapped there, forced to listen to hate speech for a long time. the reactions of the audience feel both staged and also inevitable, like people are trying to prove themselves by shouting louder… when in real-life i think we would just switch off the TV. my sister-in-law also watched it recently and was as troubled by it as i was. i’m glad we got to see it though!

we’ve been doing some morning walks outside, to catch some sun early in the day and see if that improves our sleep. i’m not sure it’s having that effect, but it’s still nice to start the day with a walk and an opportunity to notice the start of spring all around us. it feels like hope is coming back with the flowers!


it was the boy’s birthday this week, 44! we went to the west coast to celebrate, where the wind was stupidly strong — even the surfers were staying away from the waves. we had really nice pizza, some bolas de berlim and burek from apolónia. we also started a big stamp-themed puzzle that my brother gave us last christmas!

Categories
weeknotes

weeknotes, 9/26

aaaaaah… a whole full week back at home! :D :D :D i can hardly explain how relaxing it feels to be here and to have time again. we’ve taken it easy this week, focusing on the big stuff and getting re-acquainted with being by ourselves. it felt so, so good.

we saw hamnet this week and i’ve been reading howl’s moving castle and listening to when the cranes fly south. the latter is about a senior that is being cared for by his son and some social caretakers and his experience of aging. it’s hitting me a bit hard, having just put father-in-law in a nursing home… but maybe there’s no better time than now to read it.

i went back to the gym today! my right forearm is still a little achy but getting better and it was good to be back to using all the muscles that haven’t moved these past couple of months. they did some maintenance on the sauna and it was extra hot, which felt amazing. i missed it so much!

we went out to eat a few times this week, as if we were starved for food from around the world (indian, korean, japanese, pizza…). but we also ate stuff from our own little plot, which is bursting at the seams with broccoli, cabbages, lettuce, radishes, chard, coriander, etc. maybe it’s all the rain that fell in the last 2 months, or maybe it’s the lack of humans fussing over it — but either way, i’ll take it and make some healthy meals out of it!