Category: just life

weeknotes, 47/25

a nothing-special week, spent mostly working at home. i went back to the gym a couple of times — mostly just to cycle or walk slowly on the treadmill, to try to give the shoulder a chance to heal. i did a few days of stronger painkillers and it seems to have helped a bit, but now i have some kind of tendinitis in the other arm…? *sigh*.

designed and ordered some christmas postcards, late as is tradition. we saw bugonia in the cinema with a friend and it was so out there that i don’t know what to think of it. we also watched yesterday, which was more of a cozy evening vibe. almost done reading a letter to the luminous deep and read the little wooden robot and the log princess as well, for a bit of a break (it was sweet).

we went to altura to see the european leg of the great world race. the runners were running 7 marathons, in 7 continents, in 7 days… which sounds crazy or maybe just superhuman. portugal’s was their 5th leg after having run in antarctica, africa, australia and asia. whoa.

no pictures this week, so i checked out what we were doing in this day in previous years.

17 years ago, we were checking out a yoko ono’s retrospective exhibition in shanghai (meh).

13 years ago, we were eating chimney cakes in budapest!

11 years ago, i was looking at my messy desk in berlin:

9 years ago was a wednesday and we visited the lighthouse in vila real de s. antónio:

5 years ago, we planted our bamboo in the garden.

3 years ago, we bought a children’s book about a king who wanted to build a wall…

it’s kind of funny to look back on the archive like this. maybe i’ll turn it into a regular thing, a throwback photo post of sorts. :)

just life weeknotes

weeknotes, 36/25

a full week with the parents + the small cousin around! there was a lot of beach and a lot of “first times” for her: first time in the ocean, first time seeing jellyfish and crabs, first time on a boat, first time writing a postcard, first time using binoculars and seeing flamingos…

wanting company on her walks, my mom promised her an ice-cream for every 10k steps she did, and she had icre-cream every single day! 😂 to pass the hot hours, we played uno and she painted everyone’s nails, as if she were a professional nail technician. i hope she’ll keep fond memories of her time here, and that she’ll want to return someday. :)

i ordered some sturdy shelves and we put them up on the bathroom we use as crafts&storage room. they look huge, and i hope they’ll be a good place to put the stuff that has been spread a bit all over the house. this messy room has been making me anxious for a long time now – hopefully when things are tidier, it’ll be easier to use it.

on saturday, we drove north with the parents so we could attend the 25th anniversary dinner of our uni class! it was fun — everyone is older and telling stories about their kids now, but the faces and the voices are all so familiar. we all spent so much time together, and it feels like we slot right back into those times.

we also had a bit of time to squeeze little niece and cover her in kisses… before finding out she has lice. luckily, we don’t seem to have caught it!

just life weeknotes

weeknotes, 35/25

just a quiet week, filled with busy work days in which nothing else happened. we worked, and went to the gym, we ate and took care of things, preparing for september and its winds of change.

we finally received the samples of the new batch of commemorative postcards (they look good!) and then they were on their way to latvia, and off to the shop.

i listened to the martian, which was good, but not as good as project hail mary. super looking forward to the movie!

my old birkenstock were splitting apart in the back, and i macgyvered them with a bit of silicone. let’s see how long they’ll last!

on my getting-rid-of-stuff spree, i sold the old treadmill + a pair of new shoes. the shoes were bought in desperation for an event a few years ago, but they were too large for me and ended up staying in the cupboard, unused. it’s good to see them fly to another pair of feet!

and then on saturday, the parents and little cousin came, with their usual whirlwind of activity and energy. :) i can’t believe this kid has never seen the ocean… it’ll be the first thing on our list!

just life weeknotes

weeknotes, 24-25/25

we were back in tavira and then immediately hosted my brother and his gang, including little niece. she’s almost 2, knows lots of words and her favorite is a very clearly enunciated “não” (no). she likes ice-cream (frozen banana whizzed with yoghurt), pizza and blueberries, making soap bubbles, listening to stories and going to the slides in the park. she does not like to walk by her own 2 feet and demands to be carried everywhere, like a tiny tyrant princess.

other than that, i just feel stretched very thin and in need of some quiet weeks working at home to recover. i never seem to learn the lesson that i need buffers of time between stuff — it’s always too tempting to cram things, to batch trips together and make traveling more efficient… but the result is that everything seems to overwhelm me and fall apart. *sigh*.

just life

weeknotes, 2/25

so… how does it feel to have half a thyroid? not that bad, actually!

the surgery went well: the nodule came out, my parathyroids (the glands that regulate calcium levels in the blood) were preserved and they didn’t touch the nerves that go to the vocal cords, so my voice is still the same. hurray! i stayed in the hospital for a night, and everyone was super friendly and helpful. the hardest part of the surgery was to find a good vein to put an IV line on my hands… several different nurses and doctors tried, giving up after many painful attempts. in the end, i received anesthesia via a mask instead, like they do for the little kids. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

apart from a little pain while swallowing and some discomfort moving the neck (and apart from the scar, which i haven’t even seen yet), i’m mostly back to my normal self. so now we wait to hear back from the pathology results.

in the meantime, because of all this i found out i had a vitamin D deficiency. it’s hard to believe that someone living in algarve could have low vitamin D, but apparently it’s relatively common in southern mediterranean countries. it’s kind of scary because it feels like it is rarely tested, but vitamin D levels impact so many aspects of health — there are even studies linking it to alzheimer. so i’ll be having supplements for a few months, and making an effort to sit in the sun everyday. we’ll see!