Hello my lovelies, I hope you are well and not just surviving but managing to thrive as well. As the title of this blog post suggests, a little life update is in order. After a couple of months of agony, I joined the millions of jobless people around the world. The timing was particularly bittersweet as it occurred after my school had an inspection and a recording of one of my classes was presented, unbeknownst to me, as the showcase of exemplary online teaching. Now that I have had a few weeks to digest what happened, I realize how much stress I had been under for a very long time and still am to a certain extent. It feels odd and discombobulating to have to reassess my life and identity at this stage of the game. I am sure that many people everywhere are going through the same process.
Part of reassessing my life is trying to get my health back on track. In the early days of lockdown, a lot of staple items disappeared on store shelves including fresh meat. Have you noticed a sharp increase in prices in your area of the world? I am really curious/concerned about the knock on effects from the rise in the cost of living juxtaposed against a recording setting unemployment rate. I was under so much stress from juggling my then job and living under lockdown that I had no choice but to eat foods such as potatoes and white rice that I shouldn't be eating due to health reasons. My health began to deteriorate and now I have to try and get it back on track. Recently I started making fruit smoothies in the mornings.
For some reason, I have always been intimidated by the idea of getting on the smoothie bandwagon. I don't have any fancy powdered supplements on hand to add to it although I am open to trying that in the future. A simple fruit smoothie with any juice that you have on hand as the liquid base and a selection of frozen, roughly chopped fruits works for me. The frozen chunks act like ice cubes which is yummy in hot weather. I have been adding in store bought frozen chunks of avocado. It doesn't change the flavour profile at all and adds in healthy fats. I could never catch whole avocados at the right point of ripeness and ended up throwing away a lot of them. Discovering frozen chunks of avocado was an absolute game changer for me. I have also tried adding in peanut butter for a more savoury taste but prefer the ingredients to be all fruit.
With the onset of sunny days, I picked up a tube of Thinksport sunscreen. I was searching for a sunscreen that was cruelty free first and foremost. It contains no Paba, parabens, phthalates, PBA, ozybenzone, avobenzone, petroleum, gluten, dairy or toxic chemicals. I don't surf and sadly, don't live near a coastline and with the current travel restrictions won't be going near one any time soon. However, for those of you who do, Thinksport SPF 50 sunscreen is reef safe and is on Hawaii's approved sunscreen list.
I was really pleased to find mine at Shoppers so no need to order it online and deal with a protracted delivery time.
I bingewatched the latest season of Outlander and indulged in my crush on the character of Jamie Fraser.
The books are lengthy and get more and more convoluted to the point of absurdity with each volume. To be honest, my interest began to wane after Jamie and Claire moved to the New World. However, the series, out of necessity, cuts out a lot of the chaff without losing the essence of the storyline. A definite thumbs up from me! Now I have to find something else to watch. Any suggestions?
What sort of adjustments have you had to make during lockdown? Have you seen the cost of groceries going up? Have you noticed any shortages?
This is not a sponsored post.
